GMO: Tegenaria duellica
by Brackets002
Summary: Peter Parker. Giant house spider. Transgenic experiment. Spider-Man.
1. Power Set

**A/N: Actually, My other Spider-Man story is **_**not**_** how I would create Spider-Man in a rebooted Marvel universe. Certain plot ideas I really, really like are there (i.e., Peter becoming an OsCorp intern and actually being responsible for the serum that gives him his powers), but I'd actually do it very differently from my other story. Which doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing **_**Another Spider**_**; it just means that if I was in charge of writing a rebooted Spider-Man, this is how I'd do it.**

** If anyone wants to propose ideas for furthering the plot, I'm welcome to them, so long as it doesn't involve OC's or giving canonically normal people powers. I've already done that. Take a look at my other story.**

** I'm going to set Spider-Man's power set in stone right now, so I don't forget later. This isn't really a chapter; it's a description of his powers and abilities.**

* * *

_Powers:_ Spider-Man

**Superhuman strength**

Each of Peter Parker's muscle cells are now hydraulically based, because each leg of a spider is just a hydraulic channel. Seriously. Because each muscle cell is several thousand times smaller than the leg of a spider, the square-cube law nitpickers are so fond of flaunting in the face of the words "proportionate strength of a spider" works _backwards. _Sort of. Now imagine billions of those tiny little channels working in conjunction. Peter can lift approximately 100 times his weight. As he weighs 135 pounds at the time he gains his powers, Peter can lift 6.75 tons, or 13500 pounds. He can lift a car with one hand. He can punch a man's jaw clean off. He can one-inch punch a grown man through a brick wall. As he gets older, he will get larger and slightly stronger, maxing out at weighing 165 pounds and being able to lift 8.25 tons.

Due to his aforementioned strength, Peter can jump roughly 100 feet into the air, and is durable enough to land from such a fall on his feet unharmed, as well as being durable enough to not have to worry about harming _himself_ ("OOOWW! I BIT MY TOUNGE OFF!"). This makes him far, far tougher than a normal human.

**Superhuman speed**

The giant house spider is capable of running 53 centimeters per second, and as the male ranges from 12 to 15 millimeters in length, that puts it at a speed of about 39 times its body length per second. Peter, being bitten by such a spider, has inherited this speed. As he is 5'7", he can run 219'2" per second, or 149 miles per hour, in short but extremely frequent bursts. He will grow a grand total of about 3 inches as he gets older, maxing out at a height of 5'10" and a top speed of 229 feet per second, or 156.14 mph.

Obviously, he is capable of moving his limbs at the speed required for this. Assuming that each pace while sprinting is approximately 3 feet, Peter can take about 73 footsteps per second. This means that he can take one step in .013 seconds._  
_

**Superhuman metabolism**

Due to the energy output of running at speeds in excess of a hundred mph, Peter has to consume approximately 15,000 calories daily, which unfortunately means he could conceivably starve to death in less than a week. The rate and efficiency at which his body processes this energy also affects his healing rate and immune system: he recovers from broken limbs in a week, and he is resistant to most minor diseases and toxins. However, his tolerance to compounds like ethyl chloride, the active ingredient in most pesticides, is significantly reduced, for obvious reasons.

**Superhuman agility and dexterity**

Big time. Peter can twist, contort, ricochet, you name it, to a degree that a peak human athlete couldn't possibly hope to emulate. Parkour? Yawn. Olympic-level acrobatics? Effortless. Peter goes between moving like a spider to moving like a man and everywhere in between so fluidly that the line between the two seems to vanish. He cannot, however, change direction in midair, as that would require the power to fly, which makes him most vulnerable in midair.

**Hyper awareness**

Peter, like a spider, is simultaneously aware of all sensory input. Nothing is fully ignored; he notices and pays attention to _everything his senses register at the same time._ This should overwhelm him, but, like an actual spider, he instinctively catalogues everything instantly, focusing mostly on the task at hand.

**Hypersensitivity to vibration**

Again like a spider, Peter's skin is extremely sensitive. If something moves _at all_ near him, he feels the resultant ripple in air pressure and, like all other sensory input, is completely aware of it. He can also feel natural air currents move around solid, unmoving objects. This means that Peter has a sort of sonar. He can feel ultrasonic, audible and inaudible vibrations, judge approximately the source based on time difference between when different parts of his body feel them, and thus is aware of literally everything happening within at least 100 feet with his eyes closed. Again, at the same time and perfectly organized in his mind.

Unfortunately, this sort of sensitivity is not without drawbacks. Think of it this way: his skin is now more sensitive to vibration than his eardrums. Not only is he exceptionally twitchy both in and out of costume due to feeling and adjusting to even the tiniest air currents, Peter finds physical contact initiated by others intolerable. That is to say, he has an aversion to being touched. Also, when attacked by sonic vibration that's meant to be damaging, in the way Shocker's gauntlets are, it will hurt, badly, even if he's not in the line of fire. In short: Spider-Man doesn't take sonic-based attacks very well.

**Hypercognition**

Similar to the speed a spider takes in and reacts to its surroundings, Peter's brain and reflexes work at forty times the speed of a normal human's. This gives him the power to track the movement of exceptionally small objects (i.e., bullets) moving at speeds up to and exceeding that of sound. This also makes him virtually untouchable in combat- again, unless in midair. He is capable of devising strategies in combat almost instantly, allowing him to predetermine his next move, and figure out his adversary's before the move is even close to halfway done. He also thinks at forty times the speed he used to, adding to his already prodigious IQ.

**Spiderlike instincts**

A spider does not need to learn how to move through its web, how to ensnare prey, how to cope with the flood of information it's brain receives. Neither does Peter. Like a spider, he just _knows_. He instinctively moves and fights like a spider. This, combined with his hyper awareness, hypersensitivity, and hypercognition, are the basis for what to other realities' Spider-Men is known as _spider-sense_... only in the case of this Spider-Man, he's actually aware of them.

A side-effect of this, once he learns how to use it, is that, like an actual spider, his quiescent (sleep) period is far from continuous. He is capable of going from fully alert to fully asleep, or the other way around, almost instantly. This later becomes useful when he spends most of his nights as Spider-Man and most of his days at school.

**Adhesion**

Peter can stick to any surface with his hands and feet, each limb detaching at will instantly. He has to apply very, very little concentration to activate this power; indeed, he often does it completely by accident. This adhesion is very strong; each finger can support over 3,000 pounds, and he can stick to surfaces without any apparent traction whatsoever, for example when he sticks to glass. However, this power can be obstructed easily: the fabric of any gloves he is wearing has to be extremely thin and loose-knit.

_Abilities:_

**Intellectual outlier**

An indirect result of various attempts to recreate the super-soldier serum during the last 70 years is that more and more certifiable geniuses are being born. About 1 per 150 people with IQ's above 140, roughly 1 per million people having IQ's over 170, and roughly 1 per 500,000,000 people with an IQ's off the chart. Reed Richards eventually made a new test similar to the IQ test, one that went to around 350*. His own pre-powers intelligence is gauged at around 218, and after gaining powers his NIR jumps to 323.

While he's not on the same level as people like Richards, Peter Parker's NIR was easily in excess of 185 before gaining hypercognition. Now that he's capable of taking in information, thinking, and understanding exactly as well as he used to and forty times faster, his NIR is more in the neighborhood of 254. At the age of fifteen, he was inventing new polymers in his bedroom, culminating with the invention of a substance that expands to fifty times its initial volume and gains the proportionate tensile strength, elasticity, and adhesivity of spider silk on contact with air. He built a tracking device the size of a dime. And he got an internship at OsCorp and invented a serum for the transferring of DNA from one organism into the genome of another BEFORE he got his powers.

** Combat pragmatist**

If Spider-Man needs an unfair advantage to win a fight, he will make one. When facing off against a professional killer or some such thing, he will stab them with whatever sharp object is in the vicinity _a la _Jason Bourne. Not in any vital organ, or anything permanently damaging, but most likely in your apparently dominant arm. He's fine with using guns... as melee weapons. Add to this pragmatism his superhuman strength, and the resultant fact that he can break somebody's arm with very little effort, and most of the people he fights (especially Shocker) wind up with their limbs in casts.

**Genre savvy**

Peter has read comic books. Not obsessively, but a few of the better ones: _Watchmen, Batman: Year One,_ and _Kick-Ass_ come to mind. He watches superhero movies, just like anyone else. And in a world where the fantastic is starting to appear, he is the type who will study it to no end. He's a major real-life superhero geek. The point is, he knows how this whole "superhero" thing works. He thinks he does, anyway. DC doesn't go out of it's way to show how super-heroing ruins your personal life. And even then, he has an overdeveloped sense of pattern recognition, and will adapt fairly well.

* * *

**A/N: If he seems overpowered, wait until you see the super villains. **

** Okay, I intend to make this fic what Spider-Man was originally: a major deconstruction of the superhero genre. However, I'm also deconstructing the resulting psychology: how would all the crap Peter has to deal with affect him? Answer: he'd get steadily more cynical and bitter, accumulating a ton of pent-up anger. But he'd also try to change his patterns to get his life to accommodate super-heroing. Unfortunately, there's no real way to do this. Ultimately, somebody very close to Peter (or perhaps Peter himself) will die**_**.**_** When that happens, remember: that is not shock value, that is a logical conclusion.**

** Also, I will be beginning with Spider-Man's origin story. This is not just to be thorough; my version of Spidey's origin is slightly different from the norm.**

** Questions? Comments? Leave a review and tell me what you think. **_**Merci. Au revior.**_

(*And yes, I know that the IQ test is not a be-all end-all test of intelligence. However, the Reed Richards Intelligence Test _is_, and it gives a numerical result similar to the IQ test just for simplicity's sake. It's still called an IQ for the same reason that people used to/still call a copy machine a Xerox machine; the number is actually called the Numerical Intelligence Reading [NIR]. In any case, "average" is still around 100, and "genius" is still around 140-150.)


	2. Powerless

**A/N: I've decided to start this story, just because I've never seen any fanfics quite like it, but there is no set schedule for chapters. it could take months at a time for one chapter to appear. Just a heads-up. Something else I'd like to point out: in Sam Raimi's adaptation of the mythology of Spider-Man, Peter's everyman status is emphasized, while in Marc Webb's adaptation, Peter's status as a loner and an orphan are brought to forefront. I, personally, like to focus on his brilliance. I don't believe Peter was originally supposed to be an everyman, just relatable. I think he works much better as One Of Us then as All Of Us.**

** This is formatted like a comic book, by which I mean one chapter is one issue. I doubt that if this was a comic series it would be titled **_**GMO: **__**Tegenaria duellica. **_**I chose that name because it was the only one I could think of on the spot that wasn't hackneyed. If this was a comic book set in a rebooted Marvel Universe, it would probably be called **_**New Marvel: The Amazing Spider-Man.**_** Or something.**

** 100 chapters will represent roughly one year, although I doubt I'll ever make it to 100. The story starts on the date September 3, 2012.**

* * *

"Captain America," said the teacher at the front of the class. "Thor. Iron Man. The X-Men. Superhumans are emerging, the comic books becoming real. Mankind is staring a new frontier in the face.

"An entirely new world is coming into bloom, the boundaries of _humanity itself_ starting to become irrelevant. Mankind is changing. So, students, inheritors of the world, I leave you free from your first day as high schoolers, with a question: What are you planning to do in it?"

By this point, there were very few students still listening. Disappointing, but understandable. Summer had just ended, but the teenagers sitting in the classroom weren't quite ready to let it go. In fact, there had been exactly one person who had listened fully to what the teacher had been saying, and he was the one who sat closest to the window.

The teacher's sigh of annoyance was drowned out by the bell ringing. "Alright, have a good rest of the day... oh, wait. I have this letter for a... Peter Parker. If any of you are Peter, stay for a second. If any of you _know_ Peter, tell him to stay for a second."

Exactly one person heard this, which was fortunate, as that one was Peter Parker. Everyone else made a mad scramble for the door, leaving the room almost entirely empty except for the teacher and Peter.

"Yes, sir?" The young man was quiet, withdrawn. Not really a classic nerd, but unquestionably somewhere between that and a geek. "Did you want something?"

"Like I said. Letter."

"Odd," Peter noticed, taking the letter. "Why not just send it to my house? Probably academic related, or..." The rest of his sentence caught in his throat as he looked at the return address. "Oh, dear god. Yes. Yes."

"What is it?"

Peter was now tearing open the letter. "It's from OsCorp!"

"What? The big giant applied science company?"

"Yeah! Maybe they're replying to my internship application!" He frantically read the letter, then abruptly put it down, beaming. He turned around, walked to the back of the class, and screamed.

"_YES! Yes, yes, yes! I did it! Ha HA!_" He turned back and dashed to the front of the class. "I got it! I'm now an intern for _Curt freaking Connors!_ "

"Intern at fourteen? Pretty impressive."

"I know." Peter turned and started to do a little half-skip, half-strut towards the door. "And I know it's impressive. And I did it."

Once Peter was outside the classroom, his joyful demeanor was replaced by a mood that best translated into words with "_Oh crap, here comes Flash._" And indeed, there he was. Lying in wait like a spider for a fly.

"Hey, Parker! Great to see you! How was your summer?!" Flash threw an arm over Peter's shoulders, a mock friendly gesture.

"Same old, same old, I guess."

"Well, that's great. Listen, I have a _shit_load of homework-"

"Forget it."

"And I was wondering if... what?"

Peter violently shrugged Flash's arm off. "Not happening, Flash. I'm not doing your homework this year, _again_. Find some other poor sap. No, wait, do it yourself."

Flash Thompson's cheerful smile melted into something resembling a sneer. "Whatever. Don't need your help, anyway. Screw you, dick." Then he was off, back to his universe of friends of which he was the center.

"Technically," Peter said under his breath, stalking to his locker, "it's not 'helping' if I'm doing _all_ of it." He messed with the dial of his locker, trying to simultaneously look at the lock and the piece of paper he had written his new combo on. Finally getting the door open, Peter scooped out the stuff from the classes he had only taken _before_ lunch and dumped it into his backpack, trying to push the zipper of his backpack all the way closed. Eventually, he managed it, kicked his locker door closed-

"Think fast!"

And received a football to the nose.

"AARGH!" Peter fell backwards, landing on his tailbone, his glasses flying off as he did. A chorus of laughter rang through the hallway, a solitary protest of "_Really,_ Flash?" interrupting the gales.

Peter, finding his glasses not too far away, turned to glare at Flash, then at the girl chewing him out. MJ. Peter jerked his head away before there was time to start staring at her. His next-door neighbor and a crush of his, she was quite possibly the hottest girl in Class of 2016. Due to that, the fact that they were neighbors, and her slightly less hostile nature towards Peter then the rest of the popular group, he had been trying to earn her affection for a very long time. Granted, he was pretty sure she had friendzoned him at best, but it was a start.

Peter slowly rose to his feet, awkwardly tossing the football back to Flash. He waved at MJ, a gesture missed by the girl, and quickly walked out of the school's entrance.

This didn't matter. He was going to change the world.

**20 Ingram Street, Queens, NY: The Parker Residence**

"I'm home!" called Peter, trotting through the front door. "And guess what happened today?!"

"Wait, wait, don't tell me," cried Uncle Ben. "Ummm... School happened."

Peter grinned. "Yes, but not what I'm talking about. You know that internship I applied for in August?"

Ben looked completely dumbfounded. "No way."

Peter slammed the letter down onto the kitchen table. "_Read it and weep!_ I'm OsCorp's newest intern. I am _pret-ty _proud of meself."

"I can tell. Oh, and by the way, Peter, guess what _else_ happened today?"

Peter squinted one eye. "Hmm. No idea."

"Go up to your room. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Peter slowly climbed the steps, feeling like he was six years old on Christmas. He entered his room, dropped his backpack under the poster of Reed Richards, and looked about, his eyes settling on his desk.

There, lying between the notes on long-chain polymers and the airtight containers of viscous liquids, sat a brand new OsCorp laptop.

Peter's inhalation was something between a gasp and an effeminate squeal. He sprinted back down the stairs, tackling Uncle Ben in a huge bear hug. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthan kyou. So much."

"They sent a letter here, too," Ben said. "I figured you might need it for whatever fancy-shmancy stuff you'll be doing."

"Absolutely. Thank you so much." Peter separated himself from Ben, beaming. "I'm going to go work on the PCs." He turned and trotted back up the stairs, closing and locking his bedroom door.

Peter sat on his chair, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose. He attached a tube to the valve at the bottom of one of the sealed containers, connecting the other end to a strange-looking mess of gears, hydraulics, a CO2 canister, and the metal clutch from a mechanical pencil. Peter moved the various objects in the line of fire off his desk, putting his new laptop into his lap, and pushed the button connected to the hydraulics.

Out of the opened clutch shot a line of liquid polymer, which instantly solidified into an amorphous solid cable on contact with air and splattered on the far wall, right between Peter's framed photo of Iron Man mid-flight and the copy of _Watchmen_ sitting on top of his bookshelf. He rolled his chair over to the center of the cable and tested it with an experimental tug.

The cable snapped under very little strain.

Peter sighed, leaning back in his chair. Another failure. He had been working on and off on developing this polymer cable (PC) idea that had been bouncing around in his head for a few months, but with limited resources, he couldn't do much. That would change, though. Sure, he wasn't going to be developing a lightweight, super strong polymer at OsCorp. But he was taking part in revolutionizing genetic engineering. The superhuman- the actual, genuine article, not the weaponized armor Tony Stark had invented- had started popping up in recent years, but they were flukes. The serum that made Captain America what he was had been lost. Mutants were simply humans who had somehow been born with advanced abilities. Thor was a Physical God. But at OsCorp, they were trying to create stable, post-birth genetic engineering and make the superhuman attainable.

Peter had been pondering the teacher's question for the past few years: Now that the superman exists, now that the world was irreversibly changing, what would he do in it? Recently, he had reached his answer: he wanted a hand in the birth of this new age. Peter Parker wanted to change the world. And OsCorp, he had decided, was the place to do it.

**OsCorp,**_ Friday_

"Welcome, interns," said Dr. Curtis Connors, making a grand, sweeping gesture with his one remaining arm, "to OsCorp's Bioengineering laboratories. Here, we are attempting to advance genetic engineering tenfold, and make the superhumans you've undoubtedly seen on the news a common occurrence. My name is Doctor Curtis Connors, and I am one of the foremost biologists on the planet. Please, feel free to look around, get acquainted with the scientists."

As the interns dissipated, Peter looked left and right. An electron microscope there, a holographic display (!) over there. Peter saw several holograms portraying cells, viruses, DNA. He noticed, though, that none of the interns seemed to be overly enthused, and, indeed, nobody had really started to actually work yet. Peter chewed the inside of his lip, then hesitantly approached Dr. Connors.

"Excuse me."

"Oh, hello," said Dr. Connors, extending his hand. "And you are...?"

"Parker, sir. Peter Parker. I just wanted to say, I am a huge fan of your work."

"Are you?"

"Yes, sir." Peter pushed his glasses higher up his nose. "I've read all your research on retroviral gene therapy and, um, the lizard's limb regeneration ability. Fascinating stuff."

"Yes, it's something of an obsession of mine." Dr. Connors gestured to the stub where his right arm should have been. "As you can imagine."

"Of course, sir. And I was hoping to meet with you, because I wanted to say, thank you so much. What with the dawn of the superhuman, I had been wanting to have a hand in their creation."

Dr. Connors smiled. "So you want to remake the world. An interesting desire, for one your age, but one I can identify with. I'm happy I can give young people like you the chance to do such a thing."

"Yes, sir. But I was wondering, um, nobody seems to have gotten started on anything. When can we get started?"

"Right now, if you so wish."

"Alright. Think I will." Peter turned to the lab tables, cracking his knuckles. "Let's do this."

_A month later_

"This" turned out to be more challenging than Peter had expected (although he much appreciated the challenge). It had been decided before the interns had even arrived that the process had to be at least partially retroviral, but that left a lot of problems. How the virus was going to replicate _and_ modify human cells, how to create a retrovirus with the DNA patterns they wanted, the list went on. The scientists had already developed a serum and tested it on a rabbit before the interns had arrived. They didn't like to talk about it, but one of them had mentioned that it looked like "something out of _The Fly_."

Peter rubbed his eyes, leaning back from his laptop. He wanted to scream from frustration. The equations were inaccurate. Everything was a problem. How would the virus be replicated without killing the cell? How could the virus infect _every single cell?_ How would the virus contain the means to replicate _and_ the genetic payload?! Viruses were _tiny_. How would the virus die after its purpose was served, to avoid contagion to others? How in God's name would every single cell show effects _immediately?_ The human body took roughly five years for each and every cell to replicate and die _once_. How would-

A knocking at Peter's door interrupted his thoughts. "Peter, it's late," he heard Aunt May say. "Are you going to bed?"

"In a few minutes," he answered tiredly. God, this was exhausting. Peter rested his face in his hand, his elbow on his desk. He needed a new approach. They were getting nowhere. Peter yawned.

_Stop,_ he told himself sternly. _ Stop going about this the way you are. Try thinking about this a different way. _Peter took a deep breath, closing his eyes and turning his thoughts inward. He mentally modified his view of the problem, somewhat akin to turning to focus on a different side of a Rubik's Cube. And suddenly, the answers started to click.

_HIV based, possibly... What if the virus was an HIV/herpes hybrid? Could stop the immune system from fighting it off... what if the ribosomes made copies of the virus to send out to other cells? Diffusion could get the job done... And that would require a lot of viruses, which would also solve the problem of getting the virus to every last cell... very quickly, if taxing on the host cells. And how to avoid contagion. B cells. They would recognize the virus after initial infection, and hopefully eliminate it. Maybe. _Peter's brow furrowed. _As for the payload..._

As he was thinking on this subject, he noticed a spider on the top of his laptop. He was about to flick it off when it scurried to the end of the laptop at a speed any human would find impressive proportionate to its size, and leapt to the top of a sealed beaker nearby, a distance any human would find spectacular for its size.

_ Why not base it on preexisting DNA?_

_ Better. Why not have it _made_ by preexisting DNA?_

Peter sat bolt upright. He blinked for a few seconds, as all the modified equations lined up behind his eyes, and then furiously began typing.

_Oh, my God. Transgenics. Yes. It would work. I've done it. Yes. Yes!_

**OsCorp,**_ the next day_

Connors examined the notes Peter had slapped onto his desk, one eyebrow arching higher and higher. "Peter, how exactly did you work this out?"

Peter shrugged, tapping the side of his head. "Just sort of clicked."

"Ah, yes, the immortal epiphany. Well, Peter, the equations seem sound, but I'm going to have the others run through them."

"And then you can begin testing," said a voice behind Peter, causing him to jump.

Peter whipped around, and immediately felt like an ant in the presence of God. Right there, three feet in front of him, was Norman Osborn, who had entered the room without a sound.

"Hello," Osborn said, his deep, voice barely rising above a whisper, yet seeming to echo in the office. "You are Peter Parker, I assume?"

Peter nodded. "Yes sir. You, uh, surprised me."

"He's fond of doing that." This comment was offered by Dr. Connors. "Mr. Osborn. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Osborn smiled, obviously ignoring the sarcasm dripping from that last word. "I came down to inform you that your deadline has been pushed forward two weeks. You need to begin animal testing as soon as possible." He looked at Peter, who was developing a slight sheen on his forehead. "I seem to have come at a most convenient time."

Peter gave a half-grin. Norman Osborn, he had concluded, was the most intimidating human being on the face of the earth.

"You're one of the interns, aren't you?"

Peter nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Well, congratulations, Mr. Parker. You may have just invented the superman."

"In which respect?" Peter couldn't help asking. "As in an all-powerful alien Kal-El, or just the dictionary definition, which is a man possessing exceptional strength or abilities?"

Osborn smiled. "I was more thinking in the philosophical sense, Mr. Parker. Perhaps I should have said Ubermensch. Have you ever read Nietzsche? He describes an ideal man who, through creativity and integrity, transcends the human concepts of good and evil. Supposedly the ultimate goal of human evolution. And you may have just put that within our grasp."

"Maybe," Dr. Connors interjected. "Like I said, the equations might be completely wrong. I'll have the others check them, and then, yes, we can begin testing."

Osborn clapped his hands. "Excellent. I'll be leaving you to it." He began to exit the room, followed by Peter and Dr. Connors.

As the three walked into the main laboratory, Osborn said sharply, "Harry."

A young man, about Peter's age, turned away from the girl he had been talking to. "Yeah, Dad?"

"I told you to stop trying to flirt with the interns. You're here to learn about my business, not acquire a date. My apologies," he added to the intern his son had been conversing with. "My son is... far from mature."

"Apology accepted, sir," the girl said, although she didn't look at all like she meant it.

"Excellent. Come on, Harry."

As Osborn and his son left the room, Connors slapped the paper Peter had given him onto one of the lab tables. "One of the interns had a breakthrough last night, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to run through this and see if it works. Be quick; Mr. Osborn has pushed the deadline forward another two weeks." With that, ignoring the groans, he turned and walked back into his office, as one of the more elderly scientists picked up the paper and scanned it.

"Transgenics?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Peter cleared his throat. "Um, yes. I decided that it would be simpler to have the retrovirus be created by the ribosomes of another animal."

"That's actually brilliant," the girl Norman Osborn's Son had been harassing commented. "Not only would a substance to do _that_ be far easier to mass-produce, _we_ wouldn't have to customize the genes we're trying to install. Evolution's already done the work for us."

Peter smiled. "Exactly."

As the scientist fed the equations into the computer, the other scientists and interns gathered around the holographic display. Soon the notes, equations, and chemical symbols filled the air around them.

"This is wrong," the girl said after six minutes of silent contemplation.

"What?" Peter looked at the equation she was studying. "No it isn't."

"Yes it is," she insisted, pointing at a group of numbers in parentheses. "See, right here. It should be like _this._"

Peter read the whole equation, then the modification she had made to it. He paused. "It was _eleven thirty._"

"That's what caffeine is for," the girl said absently, flicking the equation aside.

"Well, other than that," said another scientist, "this seems accurate. We should test it."

_the next day_

Peter closed his laptop, glancing at the girl from across the room. She had impressed him the other day: the error she had noticed was not a trivial one, and that particular equation had been examined by at least two scientists before her. And she was pretty, too. Shoulder length blond hair with a slight curl, pale blue eyes... well, bottom line, he could see why Norman Osborn's Son had been flirting with her.

_Great,_ he thought. _Now I have another crush..._

_You know what? Screw that. Go talk to her._

Peter couldn't believe himself as he started walking towards the girl. She had been irritated by Norman Osborn's Son. A young man who had a lot of money and a ridiculously busy father. Said father being _Norman freaking Osborn_. And here he was. What did he have that Norman Osborn's Son didn't?

_A good head on your shoulders,_ Uncle Ben would have replied.

He'd take it.

"You know, I haven't seen you around school," Peter said when he reached her. She quickly turned around, surprised by his sudden appearance. "Do you go to a private one or something?"

The girl snorted. "As if. No, I don't attend school. My parents realized when I was in third grade that I was smarter than most college grads, so they just gave me a library card and a computer and were like, 'Here you go, have at it.' And you? You just co-invented superhumans; why are _you_ in public school?"

Peter shrugged. "Well, I would be homeschooled, but I don't want attention to be drawn my way for the wrong reasons, and I realized, there aren't very many _positive_ conclusions you can draw from a young person not attending a school. Sure, I might be ridiculously smart. But on the other hand, I might just be crazy."

The girl laughed. "Well, I guess that's true."

_meanwhile_

Harry Osborn watched the two through the window. God dammit. He wasn't going to be jealous, but it had always irritated him how other people could so easily engage in conversation with their peers. And then here he was, the son of arguably the scariest person in New York.

There's a stereotype that rich people never, ever have any trouble finding a date. And while this stereotype, like all stereotypes, had some element of truth to it (Tony Stark came to mind), just as often, the fabulously wealthy were deemed unapproachable by the opposite sex. He had been actually trying to make conversation with that girl the other day. And, yes, in hindsight, he probably had been a little forward, but come _on!_

You know what? If that geek got the girl, he would have a little fun with him.

Harry quietly walked into the main lab and to the experiment table. Here, there were two of several different types of animal, each individual one sealed in its own container. Two lab mice, two small snakes, etcetera. The animals being tested covered most of the main types of animals. Mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects, arachnids. Harry's hand hovered over two particular containers, both containing identical spiders, before he selected one at random, carried it to where the geek had left his stuff, and dumped the spider onto his backpack. He quickly closed the container, put it back where he found it, and left the lab, chuckling to himself.

_meanwhile_

"How old are you, anyway?" the girl asked, looking Peter up and down. "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Fifteen next week," Peter replied. "And don't say I'm a little young to be an intern; there is _no way_ you're much older than me."

"Actually," she said, "I'm a month younger."

"Hurm." Peter glanced at his watch. _Five minutes of pleasant conversation. Not bad, but I shouldn't push it._ "Hey, I've got to go. My aunt wanted me to call by five."

"Wait, your _aunt?_ What happened to your parents?"

"9/11."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "...Oh. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I don't remember much of them. My aunt and uncle are my parents. Hey, could I get your phone number?"

"Sure."

Peter quickly dug his cell phone out of his pocket, opening up his contact list and typing the number the girl gave him. "It was nice talking to you... um..." He looked up at her. "Actually, I have no idea what your name is."

"Stacy. Gwen Stacy. And you?"

"Bond. James Bond." He waited for laughter, and when he received a chuckle, he said, "But seriously, my name's Peter Parker. It's been a pleasure." He turned, smiling, and walked to where he had put his laptop and backpack, selecting Aunt May on speed dial as he did. "Hey, Aunt May," he said, reaching for his backpack under the table. "Yeah, I'm ready for a ride. Cool. Thanks... OW!"

"What? What was that?" Aunt May asked, suddenly concerned.

Peter examined the bite mark on his hand. "Nothing. There was a spider on my backpack. It bit me." He looked at where the spider had fallen. For its size, that was the fastest he had ever seen a spider, or, really, anything else, move. "What? Oh, no. It's a... giant house spider, I think. Not at all dangerous to humans. I just scared it." He reached out with one foot and, after a few misses, crushed the spider. "So can you be here in, say, ten minutes?"

"Sure. See you then."

"Alright, bye." Peter tapped the red button on his phone, pushing it back into his pocket. He grabbed his laptop, tucking it under his arm, and walked out of the lab. A few seconds later, he went back, put down his laptop and backpack, shrugged off his lab coat, hung it up on its hook, grabbed his stuff again, and left.

_thirty minutes later_

Peter stumbled into the house, pale, sweaty, and breathing hard. He had chills, felt shaky. Tired.

"Hey, Pete. How was it today?"

Peter shook his head, momentarily too out of breath to respond. "...Went great. Talked to a girl. Synthesized proteins for retroviral creation, testing it on animals... Think I'm coming down with something..."

"I'll say," said Uncle Ben, looking at Peter. "You look like crap."

"Feel like crap," Peter agreed. "Scuse me. Gonna go sleep it off. Prob'ly twenty-four-hour bug. G'nite."

Aunt May watched Peter nervously as he started up the stairs. "Are you sure?"

Peter nodded slowly, his heart racing. "...Yeah. Pretty sure. Yeah." He stumbled the rest of the way up the stairs and into his bedroom, putting his laptop onto his desk, shrugging off his backpack, and pulling off his shirt and shoes. For a second, he leaned against the wall, his balance failing. Then he pushed himself back up, headed for his bed. When he felt something resisting his movement, Peter tugged slightly... and small pieces of the wall came off on his fingertips.

Peter collapsed onto his bed, drifting off to bizarre dreams. Dreams of spiders weaving a web of DNA, reshaping it, replacing parts that had been there for generations, adding onto new areas, making them stronger.

Back when Harry Osborn had selected the spider to drop on Peter Parker's backpack, a fifty-fifty chance had opened up. Had he selected the control spider, the bite on Peter Parker's hand wouldn't have ever given him another thought. He would have lived his life, chosen to graduate high school two years early, become one of the foremost superhuman biologists on the planet, but most of his accomplishments would be shared by a room of scientists that accomplished very little while he did nearly everything. He would have married Gwen Stacy, had a child named Ben Parker, after the uncle he lost a week from tomorrow. He would have died at the age of ninety-one, his name lost in history a scarce one hundred years later.

But that's not what happened.

This is.

* * *

** A/N: ****What do you think? Please leave a review. **_**Merci. Au revoir.**_

**(By the way, GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism and _Tegenaria duellica_ is the giant house spider's scientific name.)**


	3. Evolution

**A/N: Alright, for those of you who have been following this story before this chapter arrived, go back to the Power Set. I tweaked Peter's weight, and consequently strength, because I realized that I had a sixteen or seventeen-year-old in mind when I wrote it. Peter, being not even fifteen yet as of this chapter, isn't quite to 7.5 tons, more like 6.75.**

** Alright, moving on:**

* * *

The alarm clock started to beep.

"GAH!" Peter's eyes snapped open, and his arm shot out and smashed the small digital clock before it had finished a single ring. Peter sprang violently off of his bed from his current position of laying face down and landed in a crouch on the floor, looking around wildly as a flood of information hit him.

An air current under the door.

Three small holes in the wall where his fingers had stuck to it and tore it away.

Minute changes in air pressure and current, mapping out the approximate shape of the room.

The- what the- the _heartbeats and breathing of the people downstairs?!_

A fly beat its wings once on the nightstand, rising a millimeter into the air.

Peter's entire body moved: he leaned to the left, his right hand reaching behind him for balance, and with his left thumb and index finger snatched the fly out of the air before it had beat its wings a third time.

Peter stayed in that position for several seconds that felt like eternities, staring at the fly, hazy in his nearsighted vision but clearly visible to him as it buzzed weakly. As he tentatively released the fly from his grasp (it fell back onto the nightstand, one wing crushed; poor thing), he felt- not heard, _felt_- the conversation taking place downstairs.

"Is Peter up?"

"Well, I heard a thump. I think he's out of bed, at least."

"Oh, great! Maybe he's doing better today."

_No. No, I most certainly am not doing better today._ Peter's eyes flitted about his room, taking in every single minute detail simultaneously. _What is this I don't even..._

"HEY, PETE!" Peter jumped slightly as he felt the vibrations through the floor, and a barely-there-but-noticeable instant later heard the sound of Uncle Ben's yell from downstairs. "YOU UP?!"

"YeahImupbutIthinkImstillsick!" Peter said, as fast as his mouth could form the words (far, far faster than normal, but still lagging so far behind his brain the words kept tripping over themselves). "IdontthinkIcangotoschooltoday!"

"WHAT?" Ben asked, completely baffled. "WHAT WAS THAT?"

Peter inhaled deeply, trying to slow himself down to the rate of speaking that he felt Uncle Ben and Aunt May using. "Sorry. I said, I think I'm still sick today!" The words still sounded slightly rushed, but they were understandable. "Can I take a sick day?"

"But that'll ruin his perfect attendance!" Aunt May said, half to herself.

Another, even worse realization hit Peter before she was though. If he missed school today, he would also have to call in sick at OsCorp. And they were taking samples from the test subjects today, to see if a virus had been created. "Never mind!" he called down, rising from his crouch and grabbing his glasses off of his nightstand. Pulling on a shirt, he walked to his door and grabbed the knob.

Which crumpled in his hand like a piece of paper.

Peter's eyes widened as he looked at the mangled metal in his hand. Slowly, he turned the former doorknob, letting himself hastily out of his room. Starting quickly down the hall, he stopped when he heard the sound of metal tearing and wood cracking. Looking back at his hand, he blinked.

The former doorknob was stuck to the palm of his hand and had torn away from the door.

Peter halfheartedly flicked his wrist to dislodge the metal. When that didn't work, he grabbed it with his other hand and tried to pull it away, only for the metal to bend on contact with his fingers like aluminum foil. Peter's brow furrowed as he rotated his hand to palm down, trying to let gravity take its natural course. When that failed, he examined where the metal was stuck to his hand, and finding no obvious cause for it to stick, dropped his hand to his side, and suddenly the former doorknob fell off of his hand as though it had never been attached.

Peter inhaled deeply, trying to suppress the inevitable freak out. The idea that he was a mutant had already presented itself and ruled itself out: there were exactly two confirmed mutants that had displayed more than one ability (Hank McCoy and Logan, last name unknown), both of whom had had their mutations tampered with, and exactly _zero_ that had displayed more than two. He was not a mutant. Most likely, this was the result of whatever disease he had contracted the night before. The symptoms of last night were gone (physically, he felt exactly like he normally did, minus his skin being so freakishly sensitive that the material of his clothes was irritating him), but new ones could conceivably have popped up. He would look up diseases on the Internet later, during lunch or when he came back home to grab his computer on his way to OsCorp.

Right now, though, he was hungrier than he had ever been in his life.

_later_

Peter sat in the fourth desk in the third row of his first period class, trying to quell his rising panic. He was feeling the air currents, vibrations, that should not have been possible to even hear, let alone feel. He felt the conversations, the subtle movements, the breathing, the _heartbeats_, of everyone in the room at the same time, and found himself keeping track of each one individually. He could see the florescent light above him flickering on and off fast enough that the human brain was _supposed_ to blend them together. At a later point in time, he probably would find this fascinating to say the least, but right now, he was freaking out.

Peter nervously grabbed his pencil, and it immediately snapped in half in what had seemed a perfectly normal grip. Dropping it, Peter lay his forehead down on the back of his hand, pressing his palm to the surface of the desk and immediately hearing cracking. _SHUT UP!_ he wanted to scream. _EVERYBODY SHUT UP AND LET ME GET MY BEARINGS!_ He was aware, even with his eyes closed, of the spitball moving through the air at him, and immediately, instinctively, caught it without looking up. Flash's whispered "whoa" was clearly audible to him.

"And so we divide by π, and... Parker?"

_**ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ**_

"AAGH!" Peter pushed the surface of his desk away from him as he felt Liz Allan's cell phone vibrate, a feeling comparable to a chainsaw starting right behind you, ripping his desk in half and falling out of his chair. He pushed himself into a crouch, and realized that half of the surface of what had been his desk was stuck to the palm of his right hand. Reactions around the classroom ranged from confusion to hilarity.

"What the-"

"Holy-"

"Jeez, Parker!"

"'_And for my next trick, I will actually trip _while sitting down_!_'"

"Parker!" The teacher strode to where Peter was slowly standing up. "What-"

The sudden pressure of the teacher's hand on his shoulder caused Peter to twitch violently, jumping away with a shout of "JEEAARGH!". He stood shaking for a second, all eyes on him.

The piece of desk fell off his hand.

"Can I go?" he asked. "Like, now?"

**The bathroom, **_thirty seconds later_

Peter cupped his hands together, letting them fill with sink water and plunging his face into the makeshift bowl. He shook his head slightly, trying to come to terms with everything that was happening. His earlier hopes had been incorrect; whatever this was, it was getting worse. Peter rested his hands on either side of the sink, taking a deep breath.

He could feel everything. He was noticing everything. He was keeping up with _everything_.

Peter was, by now, positive that he had lost his mind.

The bell ringing some fifteen feet away from him was a very unpleasant surprise, the noise far more jarring than it had been yesterday or the day before. And yet, he was slowly getting used to how...loud, for lack of a better word... everything was. He grabbed his backpack, once again lifting it so easily he was surprised it hadn't floated up towards the ceiling, and started towards the door.

Immediately, he heard a crack of porcelain and felt a piece of the sink come off on his left hand.

Peter walked to the door, staring at the piece of the sink that was stuck to his fingertips and concentrating, trying to will it to fall off. When that failed, he relaxed slightly, and smirked as it fell off, an increasingly easy occurrence. He grabbed the bathroom doorknob with a paper towel, growling with frustration as he felt metal crumple like paper again, and left the bathroom, trying and failing to tear the paper towel off of his hand as he walked down the hallway, simultaneously overhearing every single concentration taking place, even among the movements, pulses, and breathing.

"So then I said..."

"Damn, that guy's ugly..."

"And then, out of nowhere, he had this, like, _seizure_ and ripped his desk in half!"

Peter stopped, groaning as he predicted where this was going and listening irritably as he was proven right.

"_What?_ How did he do that?! _I_ can't even do that!"

"Well, let's go ask him. He's right there."

"Hey, Parker!"

Peter turned, annoyed. "_What?_"

The large group, Flash as its leader, stopped. "Jeez. Who pissed in _your_ Cheerios?" Flash asked, getting a small laugh from the others. "What was that thing in class all about, dude?"

"_I. Don't. Know_. Go away."

"No. I don't have to go away if I don't want to."

"You sound like a six-year-old," Peter snarled. "Now get out of my face. I have my own shit to deal with without you adding to the pile." With that, Peter turned and stalked down the hallway.

The feeling of air disturbances in the shape of a foot hurtling towards him caused Peter to stop for a beat, moving past surprise almost instantly. He considered moving out of the way for a moment, before realizing he had plenty of time (the foot wasn't even halfway to him) to do something that wouldn't seem remotely accidental. He spun, shrugging his backpack off of one shoulder and catching it by one of the straps as it fell, before catching the foot of Flash's best friend "Kong" by the heel, pulling him off-balance, and throwing his backpack at Kong's face.

The result was Kong falling on his butt, perhaps the first time one of the popular group had ever done so.

Peter blinked. He already knew _how_ he did that: easily. He simply took advantage of whatever this was to show that he was, in fact, capable of fighting back. He also knew that he shouldn't have been able to do that at all. No one was capable of feeling air currents that subtle, no one could formulate a plan that fast, and no one could move that fast barring Bruce Lee. But he did it anyway. Peter slowly smiled as he realized that maybe whatever this was, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe now he could walk a little taller.

Peter walked to where his backpack had landed, picked it up, already prepared for how light it was now, and walked down the hall to his next class, ignoring the shouts and threats behind him.

**The Parker Residence, **_later_

"I heard you were fighting in school."

Peter scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Uncle Ben's gaze. "It wasn't my fault. Kong was trying to hit me, so I just... knocked him down. No one was hurt or anything."

Ben flashed a smile. "Well, Pete. I'm glad you were defending yourself... I mean..." He glanced at Aunt May, who had now turned her glare on him. "Even so, Pete, you should have diffused the situation nonviolently. Used 'I' messages and...stuff."

Peter looked at Uncle Ben incredulously, than at Aunt May. "I'm not in trouble for this, am I?!"

"No," said Ben, at the same time that May said "yes."

"_What?!_ I didn't do anything! I knocked him down because he was about to _literally_ kick my a-butt."

"Waitaminute." Ben's brow furrowed. "You knocked him down when he was trying to kick your butt... you knocked him down when he was _behind_ you?"

"He was making a pretty big show of it," Peter said lamely, then quickly tried to change the subject. "Listen, I need to get to OsCorp pretty quick. Could we talk about this in the car or something?"

**OsCorp,**_ later_

"Oh, Peter," said Dr. Connors, glancing up as Peter walked into the lab. "I'm glad to see you. You can help us look."

Peter looked at Connors strangely, setting is laptop down on a lab table. "...Look for what?"

"A spider."

Peter's eyebrows raised a good three inches. "...I beg your pardon?"

Connors stood up from his crouch, pointing to the table the test subjects were on. "Earlier today, we discovered that one of our test subjects was missing. The giant house spider, _Tegenaria duellica._ We've been looking for it all day."

The dime-sized bite mark on Peter's right hand was suddenly starting to itch, as though it was screaming _Look at me! I'm what you're looking for! Your first human trial is right here! _"Right," Peter said, clasping his hands behind him, surreptitiously covering the bite with his left thumb. "I'll, uh, start looking, then. I think I'll check, er, over there, next to the computers."

"That's the first place we looked."

"Um, well, I think I'll, uh, double-check your work."

Peter walked to the computer systems as fast as he could, new panic opening up in his mind as the pieces suddenly fell into place. Increased strength. Hypersensitivity to vibration. Hyper awareness and hypercognition. Adhesion.

Retrovirus. Transgenics. Spider. _Tegenaria duellica._

Bite.

Contagion.

_If those equations were even a _little_ off...!_

Peter bent over the large touch screen, blocking any view over his shoulder with his left hand. He typed in the command for genome examination, moving so hastily in his terror that the handle he had gotten on his strength during the day vanished and the screen cracked wherever he touched it. When asked for the genome to be examined, he picked up a sterilized needle that was handily available on a nearby table, accidently shattered it, picked up another one far more carefully, stabbed it hastily into his own left arm, and extracted much more blood than was probably needed, squirting the sample into a vial and dropping the vial into the machine nearby.

After a while of sorting through the beneficial bacteria in his bloodstream and finding a (mostly) human blood cell to work off of, the computer screen lit up, and Peter anxiously read what it had found.

_Mutation Detected_

Homo sapiens

Tegenaria duellica

_ Mutation Stable_

_ Virus Abated_

_ Condition Stable_

Peter read the last two words over and over again, a wave of relief washing over him. _Condition Stable._ He wasn't going to change further. _Condition Stable_. He wasn't about to turn into Parkerfly. _Condition Stable._ He was fine.

It suddenly hit Peter that he technically had superpowers. Like, actual superpowers. He had thought that these were just symptoms of a disease, and in a way they were, but they were literally beyond what was humanly possible, _and _were a permanent part of him. He was far more aware of his surroundings than a normal person, far, _far_ more sensitive to vibration, and his mind was obviously hauling _way_ more ass than it used to. He was far stronger and faster than he used to be (how much remained to be seen). Peter glanced behind him, at the scientists searching for the spider on the other side of the room. He realized he should probably tell them, but... there were a few reasons not to.

If Norman Osborn or the government found out, he might never again see the light of day. He had heard of the Weapon X program, and he had no desire to see firsthand if the rumors were true.

The scientists would find out that the serum/virus worked soon enough. Eventually, they would test the virus harvested from the test subjects on stem cells; they would find out that it worked then.

He was a superhuman. Secret identity and all that jazz. (He had a quiet chuckle at that. He had read both _Watchmen_ and _Kick-Ass_; there was no conceivable way he was going to make himself a part of that.)

No, he would keep this to himself, for now. Maybe he would run his own experiments, see what kind of power levels a spider-based virus gave a physically unremarkable human specimen. He might tell them after he had found out exactly what he could do, seeing as they needed to get this done two weeks earlier than they had. But until then...

Peter walked to about where he had left his backpack the day before, searching the ground for a smashed spider. Finding it, he crouched down and called to the others, "Hey, I found it. Looks like someone stepped on it."

Dr. Connors walked to where Peter was and looked at the splotch on the floor. After a moment, he hissed a rather disgusting word under his breath, before looking up at the others and saying, "Alright, listen: the spider's been destroyed. We no longer need the control arachnid; if somebody would like to dispose of it, please." He paused, looking back down at the smashed arachnid. "Hmmm. We actually don't need very many hands today. The interns, I suppose, can be dismissed to go if they would like."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Really? Excellent. There are a few things I want to test."

**Peter's Bedroom,**_ later_

Peter took a deep breath, focusing all his attention (sort of) on the information his skin was receiving. He had been able to tolerate it at school today, but he hadn't really had an opportunity to get a full handle on this increased sensitivity. Now, though, in the privacy of his bedroom, he was able to get acquainted with his new sense of touch.

It was remarkably like hearing. He could feel the movement of air around him, as its motion was shaped by the solid objects in the room and the shape of the room itself. All this was perfectly organized in his mind; he understood all of this. He kicked off his shoe, kicking it at the wall, and felt the vibrations of it headed back at him after it bounced. Without opening his eyes, he easily caught it with one hand. Peter smiled, opening his eyes to look at what he had done. It still might take a little getting used to, but when he got used to it, he would _really_ like it.

His mind's increased speed - Hypercognition, he had decided to formally call it - was something he had already gotten more or less used to, and had already taken a liking to. But he had still yet to actually gauge it. Peter took his watch, carefully pushing the lower button until the stopwatch function appeared on the lower, digital face, and started it at the same time as he started counting seconds in his head.

By the time the stopwatch said one second had passed, Peter had already counted off forty.

Peter turned to the notebook on his desk, picking up the pencil resting on it and accidently shattering it. _Hurm. Next on the agenda: figure out how strong I am._ With the sharpened half of the pencil, Peter carefully wrote out _Hyper awareness; Hypersensitivity, Hypercognition (40 x norm); Increased strength (_

Peter stopped for a moment, chewing on his lip. Obviously, he wasn't strong enough to harm himself, otherwise he would be a bloody pulp by now. Either he wasn't as strong as it appeared, or he also had increased durability. He stood up, walked over to his bed, and rolled under it.

And proceeded to easily bench press it with one hand.

Peter slowly sat up, keeping his bed over him. Standing, he straightened his arm, and felt the bed bump into the ceiling. He was still lifting it with one hand. With ease. Peter grinned.

Setting the bed down, he walked back to the desk, quickly erasing _Increased_ and changing it to _Superhuman_. As he released the sharpened half of the pencil, it stuck to his middle finger. Peter closed his eyes momentarily and the pencil fell.

And then he decided to try out this adhesion thing.

Peter walked over to the wall, next to the bedroom window. Calling to mind all the times he had seen a spider crawling on a vertical surface, he reached out, resting the fingertips of both hands on the wall and felt a slight sensation of them settling there. Experimentally trying to pull them off, he smiled as he felt some resistance. Peter kicked off his other shoe, then touched the toes of one foot to the wall, feeling it settle through the bottom of his threadbare sock. Peter took a deep breath, and quickly lifted his last limb off of the ground.

There he was, not touching the ground, hanging onto the flat surface of his wall by his fingertips and toes, and nothing else. Peter smiled as he deliberately detached one hand from where it was, placing it again on the wall higher up. Adhering and detaching to surfaces was remarkably easy, actually; it was simply a matter of knowing how to turn it on and off that formed any hindrance. Peter imagined that before he turned fifteen, this would be as easy as walking.

He was already on the ceiling. Peter grinned, chuckling. Detaching from the ceiling, he did a half-flip, easily landing on his feet. He quickly added _adhesion_ to his list of powers, before an insane thought came into his mind.

_Well, why not._

_ That night_

Peter opened the window, popping out the screen and making absolutely sure no one was looking. Carefully, he stepped out, sticking to the outside wall of his house and carefully crawling down. He jogged to his backyard, nervously cracking his knuckles. Despite the earlier tests, he still had no idea what his power levels were. You couldn't exactly run tests like that in your bedroom. No; Peter had decided to run a few field tests.

First of all, he decided to see how strong his legs were. Inhaling deeply, he squatted down and jumped.

Nearly 100 feet into the air.

"HOLY SHIT!" he screamed, his arms and legs flailing as he started to fall. His mind remaining surprisingly calm, he decided against screaming any more, for fear of waking someone up. They'd be plenty freaked out by the gigantic splatter of blood in the Parker's backyard tomorrow morning.

Peter fell, bracing himself for impact, and was surprised beyond words when he landed squarely on his feet, with no shattered bones or tissues. It was exactly as if he had jumped _two_ feet into the air. Minus the small crater in the ground, of course.

Peter, after taking several deep breaths, found himself in the grip of ecstatic laughter. _Holy shit! That was awesome! _ He turned so that he was facing the house, and hopped, giving his jump about 25% power. Landing on the roof, he looked around for a moment, then hopped to the street and started to run.

Not just faster than he had ever run in his life.

Faster than any mammal had ever run in the history of the world.

Peter felt the muscles in his legs heating up alarmingly fast, felt his pace starting to fail, and realized he really, really couldn't keep up a sprint like this for very long. Instead of stopping, though, he jumped, and found himself sailing over a house. Landing on the roof of the first of the larger buildings of Forest Hills, he winced slightly as the parapet he landed on shattered. _Oops._

Peter licked his lips absentmindedly, looking in the direction he was facing. During his jump, he had been able to see the Queensboro Bridge to the main city. He had been intending to just run around his neighborhood a little, but between his speed and jumping, he decided that he would need a larger playground.

Peter stood, walking to the far edge of the rooftop. Carefully, he took a quick step forward, pushing off with his other leg and sailing to the top of the next building. Repeating the motion, he easily executed something between a run and a series of impressive leaps across the top of the streetlights and buildings, getting to the bridge almost breathtakingly fast. A final, farther jump had him hanging on to one of the steel beams connecting the bridge to the upper structure, adhering to it almost reflexively. He curled his toes around it, sticking there too, before hesitantly starting to climb up it, towards the top of the bridge.

"OH MY GOD!" Peter heard someone scream. "LOOK! THERE'S SOMEONE UP THERE!"

"Holy..." another said. "...It...It's a mutant!"

"Gotta be," a third said.

Peter looked down at the assembling crowd, shielded his face from the camera phone he noticed, and gave a quick wave. Grinning almost madly, he rose out of his crouch, running along the upper steel of the bridge at a 65 mile per hour jog.

It took about thirty seconds to get to Manhattan. Peter leapt off the Queensboro Bridge, putting as much power into the jump as he could, and hit the top of a nearby building running. Jumping off of it, he landed on the wall of a neighboring skyscraper, almost falling off before he stuck to the wall. Peter took a deep breath, staring upward at the distant roof of the building, before detaching his fingertips from the wall, rising into a horizontal standing position, and starting to run up the wall.

He came flying over the edge of the rooftop, executing one beautiful front flip before landing on the roof. Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he scanned the area around the building, seeing a fairly distant building outside his range of a single leap, a flagpole between the two skyscrapers. Taking a running start, Peter leapt off the roof, bounced on the top of the flagpole, and landing on the roof of his targeted building, already with his next trajectory in mind. Peter silently thanked his hypercognition for giving him the ability to come up with these plans so fast, before taking another running jump off the building, sticking to the wall of one next to it and sprinting up.

He was, by now, very close to Midtown. Peter stopped for a moment to catch his breath, grinning. He shook his head slightly, clearing it of the flights of fancy. He wasn't out here to play, although that was a definite perk. He was out here to run tests of what he was physically capable of. Peter pulled a small tape recorder out of the pocket of his sweatpants, holding it near to his mouth and pushing the RECORD button.

"Parker's Log," he said. "October (what day is it? Birthday in four days, so...) October 10, 2012, 11:32 p.m. Note to self: make up a better name than "Parker's Log." Note ends.

"My earlier notes of my power levels were obviously underestimates. I am capable of jumping roughly 100 feet straight up from a standing position, and am durable enough to land from such a height unharmed. I have yet to test my arm strength, but I suspect I am capable of lifting at least 2,000 pounds. Earlier, I engaged in a sprint for roughly ten seconds, and found myself capable of going at least 1,500 feet in that time. Note to self: Research maximum speed of giant house spider, _Tegenaria duellica._ Note ends.

"I have already learned to cope with altered senses, and hypercognition and increased awareness are assisting my tests. I have currently charted said hypercognition of multiplying my thinking speed, and presumably reflexes, by a factor of approximately forty. To the casual observer, I imagine my reactions would resemble precognition.

"My adhesion ability is activated at will, and as easily as if I've always been able to do it. I am more than capable of scaling walls in a manner not unlike a spider. I will now run tests on upper body strength, and overall agility."

Peter pushed the button on the recorder, putting the entry on hold. He slipped it back into his pocket, before turning to the multi-story car park he noticed three or four streets away. Peter walked briskly to the edge of the building, jumped over the street to the one across from him, and repeated the process, landing on the top level of the car park.

Browsing the automobiles on this floor, Peter wondered absently who had their cars parked here at nearly midnight. Brushing the thought away, he noticed a small Smart car parked in the corner. Walking to its back bumper, he glanced around, seeing that the only camera on this level was on the opposite corner, then turned back to the car, gripped its bumper...

And _flipped_ the thing.

Peter stared at the upside-down Smart car. Holy crap. He could do that. He could very easily flip a small car. His face slowly broke into a smile, before he hopped over the car and flipped it over again, making it right side up, with a slightly crushed roof. Peter looked at his own hands, then up at a nearby Subaru. He would be careful, he promised himself, hopping gleefully from foot to foot over to the thing. Crouching down next to it, Peter lifted one side of it, doing an awkward crouch-walk and walking his hands until he was beneath what he estimated to be the car's center of gravity. Once there, he pressed his hands upward, and stood up.

He was lifting a car.

He was _lifting_ a _car_.

_**Puny Parker**__ was __**lifting**__ a __**car**__._

Peter's arms shook slightly as he supported the car's weight. He grinned, noting that although this was a little difficult, he could in theory do this with only one hand. Peter shifted his grip, and then dropped his left arm to his side.

He was now lifting a medium-sized car, which probably weighed about two tons, over his head, _with one hand_. This, Peter decided, was the most awesome thing he had ever done in his entire life. It was extremely difficult, though. His arm was screaming, and his elbow was threatening to buckle. Peter raised his left arm up again, shifting the weight of the car back onto both hands, before crouching back down, setting the wheels of one side down by tilting the car and then rolling out from under the thing. He lay on his back, staring upwards and laughing, before digging the recorder back out of his pocket. "11: 38. I am capable of lifting two tons over my head with each hand, for at least thirty seconds at a time."

Peter put the recorder away, then considered what he'd do next. Well, during his run on the skyline, he had noted that he had displayed several bursts of impressive agility. Peter abruptly tucked his legs into a ball above him, then quickly kicked them upwards and forwards, their momentum catapulting him into a standing position. He raised his eyebrows at the fact that that actually worked. He had seen it many a time in old kung-fu movies and YouTube videos, but he hadn't thought it would actually work very well. Inhaling deeply, Peter looked up at a lamp above him, then jumped up to it. Crouched on top of it, Peter placed on hand on the metal, slowly but confidently pushing himself into a one-armed handstand. He smiled, before pushing himself onto his fingers, taking them away one by one.

At last, Peter was suspended by a single finger, easily managing to stay in his handstand. He smirked. Awesome.

Bending both knees, Peter let himself fall backwards, adhering to the lamp with his finger as he fell and twirling on the bar like a professional gymnast. Keeping with that metaphor, Peter kicked his legs out away from the bar, detaching from it and sailing over the few cars parked on that level of the car park. He landed on the parapet, easily keeping his balance on the round steel rail even without his adhesion ability, before grabbing the rail with one hand and flipping down, letting go and landing on the parapet to the second level down.

Leaping backwards immediately, he bounced off the ceiling, then the floor, then the exterior wall of the elevator shaft, before delicately landing on the roof of a car. Taking a breath, Peter hopped down onto the floor, before sprinting for the parapet again and leaping off.

He bounced on the roof of the building next door, also a multi-story car park, before sticking to the wall of the next building and launching himself upward, onto the roof. Running across it, he leapt, and, finding himself in the land of skyscrapers again, kicked off of a wall, then another wall, flying through a jungle of concrete and glass.

The Chrysler Building loomed ahead of him. He made a split-second decision and headed towards it, planning his route as he went. Bouncing off of the side of one building, he stuck to the side of another one with his feet and ran across it, jumping as he got to the corner, swinging on a flagpole, and landing on the wall of the Chrysler Building.

Peter gathered his legs under him, jumping straight up off the wall. As his ascent started to slow, he stuck to the wall with one of his hands, vaulting up another fifty feet, sprinting a few paces, and leapt up again, landing on the building's spire.

Peter crouched on top of one of the metal eagles, staring down at the city below him and smiling. He was more than a man now. He was more than he could ever have hoped to become before. "Parker's Log," he said into the recorder. "October 11, 2012, 12:00 a.m. I have, for the most part, mastered my powers. This changes everything. _Everything._ I... sorry, _we_ have created the superhuman. And I have _become_ superhuman.

"Imagine what this means. Military applications. Police. Even... even normal people. There is a gene that scientists have implanted into _E. coli_ to synthesize insulin for diabetics. Now we could... implant that gene _directly into_ diabetics. Alright, now that I say that out loud, that seems like a rather rash idea, but you understand what I mean. We can make amputees' limbs grow back. We can make humans _impervious to disease._ We can... no. We already have. We have made one human evolve beyond anything a human has ever, _ever_ been capable of."

Peter grinned as he paused, to allow that to sink in to whoever would listen to this in the future. "Me. I am now the most powerful human being in existence. By human standards, I am next to Thor."

With that, Peter deactivated the recorder, put it back in his pocket, and stared upwards at the sky. After a moment, he screamed.

"_WHOO-HOO!_"

* * *

**A/N: About Peter's last comment: the Hulk doesn't exist yet. Neither does the Fantastic Four. And the only known telekinetic has extremely limited power, at least as far as has been demonstrated up to now.**

** The only confirmed superhumans currently in existence are: Captain America, Red Skull, Thor, Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Phoenix, Angel, Iceman, Professor X, Magneto, ****Mystique, Daredevil (although nobody knows about him yet), and now Spider-Man. Iron Man doesn't count.**

** So,**** what do you think so far? Please review! **_**Merci. Au revior.**_

**(P.S. I tried to make the layout of New York pertain as much as possible to what it actually is like. Have any of you studied it on Google Earth? That thing is _huge!_)**


	4. Practical Applications

"Good morning, beautiful," Dr. Connors said, his hand entwining with his wife's from behind.

Martha Connors smiled. "Good morning, Curtis. You seem in an excellent mood today."

"I am." Curtis spun Martha around, pecking her on the lips. "The serum works. Following injection, human stem cells ejected four hundred copies of the virus within five minutes, and had already begun to change by thirty."

"I'm not positive what that means," Martha said, smiling nevertheless at her husband's giddiness, "but it sounds good."

"Good?!" Curtis repeated, his grin stretching from ear to ear. "Martha, I know marine biologists don't study human stem cells, but I would think you know what 'worked' means. We did it! We have opened doors to the future that previously didn't even exist! We can create gods now!"

"What's all the yelling about?" a young boy, about nine years old, asked, entering the kitchen.

"Good morning, Billy," said Curtis, stepping over to his son and bending down to his height. "Have I ever told you that you are blessed to grow up in a world where humans are becoming so much more?"

"Um, once or twice," Billy said.

Curtis smiled, hugging Billy for a second, then stood up. "Well, I have to go to work. I might be working late again, so don't wait up." With that, he walked merrily out the front door, scooping up the newspaper in the driveway on the way to his car.

Once in his car, he opened up the _Daily Bugle,_ scanning through the headlines. Tum te tum, a Stark press conference, North Korea was working on the creation of their own superhumans... what was this?

_**MYSTERIOUS SUPERHUMAN SHOCKS NEW YORK**_

The article described several sightings of a figure with superhuman strength, speed, and agility on the Queensboro Bridge and in Midtown Manhattan the previous night. As Curtis scanned the article, his curiosity suddenly turned to horror, then anger, as he saw one particular picture.

The man, who was too far away to see his face in the picture, was actually _sticking_ to the wall of a building with his hands and feet.

The escape and subsequent destruction of the giant house spider test subject had been causing some confusion for Curtis. Now, though, he thought he could put things together.

The spider would have had a job escaping its glass container without outside help.

The article described the man as being able to scale walls and possessing incredible agility.

Whoever had stepped on the spider had probably done so on purpose. _Tegenaria duellica_ was the second fastest land animal on Earth for its size, capable of moving 33 times its body length a second, so the person who had destroyed the spider had probably aimed to do so.

The man reportedly had sprinted at speeds in excess of one hundred mph.

An infected human cell showed signs of change within thirty minutes of being infected by the virus.

Curtis' mood had gone from exceptionally good to exceptionally bad in a matter of seconds. He angrily started the car, pulling out of the driveway and starting down the street.

_meanwhile_

"Parker."

Peter woke up mid-snore, lifting his head up and looking around at the classroom, all the occupants of which were looking at him and laughing. "Yeah?"

The teacher looked irritated. "I'm glad you could join us today, Mr. Parker," she said drily. "Now, as much of a tremendous bore _Julius Caesar_ must be to someone as brilliant as yourself, I must request you try to remain conscious for the time being. Naptime is another period; it's called _lunch_."

"Sorry." Peter shifted his weight slightly, twitching as someone coughed on the other side of the room. "Late night."

"I'm sure."

_Passing Period_

"Hey Parker!"

"Yes, Flash?" Peter asked, turning to face him. "You already know I don't sign autographs, so I hope this is important."

"I heard you fell asleep in class. What, up too late reading, uh, _Twilight_ or something?" This got a general laugh, even from Peter.

"For the record," Peter said, pointing at Mary-Jane next to Flash, "I'm pretty sure your girlfriend here likes Stephanie Meyer's writing, as unthinkable as that is. More to the point, it was actually _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy._ I think you could find kinship with the Volgons, by the way."

"That was an insult, wasn't it?" Flash asked.

Peter burst into applause. "Bravo! Bravo! Everybody, did you hear that? He figured out I was dissing him! Really, you should be proud of yourself, Eugene."

Flash's eyes narrowed upon hearing Peter say his real name. "What was that, Puny?"

"_Hey._" Peter's smile dropped. "When I found Parker Technologies and you come crawling to me for a job, you'll regret that nickname. At least your mom thought Eugene was a good name."

Flash sneered. "You wanna go?"

"Maybe." Peter glanced at his watch. "We have time. Why not?" Dropping his backpack onto one shoulder, he unzipped it, pulled out a _Popular Mechanics,_ and rolled it into a tube.

"Why were you carrying a magazine?" Mary-Jane asked, looking strangely at the rolled-up magazine Peter was holding.

"Cause he needed something to hit me with," Flash said. "Come on. Too much of a baby to throw a punch?"

"You should be glad," Peter said, dead serious. He had been hoping that he'd get to fight Flash now that he had the advantage, but he had realized that a single punch could shatter Flash's entire rib cage, so had decided to just hit him with a magazine. But what he said, joking again, was, "I'm thinking that when I hit you, osmosis will make you smarter. Worth a try."

"Heh. Gonna enjoy smacking you around, prick." With that, he moved to shove Peter.

Peter waited a moment for Flash's hands to get close, then stepped back, ensuring that the resistance Flash had expected to find a certain point in space wasn't there. When Flash was off-balance as a result of this, Peter darted forward and smacked him in the ear with the magazine.

"Hey!" Flash caught himself, saving himself from an embarrassing fall, then turned towards Peter, who was now standing to his left. Gritting his teeth, he clenched one fist and moved to punch Peter, who saw the move coming and quickly ducking under the punch and smacking Flash in the armpit with the magazine, then grabbing his right leg and pulling it out from under him.

"Oof!" grunted Flash, landing rather painfully on his tailbone. The gathered crowd was dead silent as he got back up.

"You all suck," Peter said, pointing to a random few of the crowd with the magazine. "If that had happened to me, you would all be laughing hysterically."

While Peter was addressing the masses, Flash tried to throw a right hook at him while his back was turned. Peter, feeling the move, turned suddenly, dodged the punch, then hit Flash in the elbow, triceps, side of the neck, and nose, pushing Flash away after the blows.

"You know," said Peter, "typically, sucker punches are considered low. Like, groin attack low. For shame, Eugene."

Following this statement, Peter quickly darted to one side, leaving Kong grabbing at air. "Jeez, two against one? I'm not sure whether I should be nervous or a little proud. Hey, Kong. There's a fly on your ear." Peter immediately lunged forward, smacking Kong in the left ear.

"Dude!" Kong stepped back, rubbing his ear. "Not cool!"

"Plenty cool," Peter contradicted. "Why do we call you Kong anyway? Is it a weight joke? I never got it."

"It's because," Flash said, advancing, "he's strong as an ape."

"'Bout as smart, too," Peter said, and both of his opponents lunged for him simultaneously.

_Hmm. This is problematic._ Peter was standing with his back to the wall, effectively cornered, with two large people trying to hit him at the same time. In a kung-fu B-movie, he would have been able to get them to hit each other, but that would have required their fists to be going in each other's general directions, which they were not. Peter sighed, going for the mundane option. He ducked.

As Flash and Kong punched the air where Peter's head used to be, Peter dove between the two, grabbing Flash's ankle on the way and effectively flipping him.

Peter rolled, his momentum carrying him back onto his feet, before he whipped around and hit Kong in the back of the neck with the rolled-up magazine. He took a few steps back, snickering as Flash clambered back to his feet. "So," he said, his smirk clear as day, "we only have about a minute before next period. You wanna wrap this up?"

Flash grunted. "Why? Chickening out?"

"Tsk," Peter replied. "Nope. I just have more important things to do than injure a quarterback. Seeing as I have knocked you on your ass _twice_ in the last minute and you're _still_ trying to hit me, that puts me above you in yet _another_ field."

Flash started towards Peter, feinted a left jab, and attempted what would have been a devastating right hook. In response, Peter grabbed his fist, making sure not to crush it as he did, used his leg to sweep Flash's feet out from under him and effectively flipped him. This resulted in Flash lying on the ground face down, the wind knocked out of him.

Peter looked at his fallen opponent for a moment, before looking up at the teacher he noticed rapidly approaching. The teacher looked at the scene before him, first at the crowd, then at Kong, then Flash, who was slowly getting up, then finally at Peter.

"Hi," Peter said offhandedly.

**The car ride home, **_later_

They drove in silence, Uncle Ben quietly immersed in some negative emotion and Peter not wanting to set foot in the minefield. The latter's right hand was curled around the handle above the passenger door (the one commonly known as the Oh Shit Handle), and the former's were clenched tightly on the steering wheel. Both parties stared straight ahead, although Peter was carefully monitoring Ben's mannerisms in an attempt to brace himself for whatever was coming.

"Defending yourself is one thing," Uncle Ben finally said, "and I'm fine with it. However, actually going out of your way to _pick a fight_ is another matter entirely. What... _Why_ did you think this was a good idea?"

_Oh thank God, _Peter thought, relaxing slightly._ A direct question._

_ Oh God,_ he revised a fortieth of a second later_. A direct question._

"Well," he said, carefully choosing every word, "Eugene... 'Flash'... he's been picking on me for all of middle school. The only reason he stopped stuffing me in lockers is because I stopped fitting so quickly midway through seventh grade. And on top of that, he was making me do his homework. I finally decided that I wouldn't take it lying down anymore."

"Mm-hmm. So you decided to fight him."

"Basically, yeah."

"You could have told an adult."

"I did in sixth grade. That turned one enemy into the entire grade resenting me. It sucked, so I thought I'd try to solve the problem myself."

"With your fists?"

"A rolled up magazine, actually."

"Hmm. Surely you knew you'd get suspended."

"No, not really. I just figured I'd get a lunch detention or something. Things escalated."

"Fights tend to." By now, Uncle Ben had relaxed ever so slightly. "You're not going to OsCorp today."

Peter looked sharply at him. "What?!"

"The way I see it, OsCorp is the only place where you actually learn anything, internet and library notwithstanding. Think of it as an extension of your suspension."

"But-but- actually, that logic isn't bad." Peter slumped in his seat, defeated, as Uncle Ben pulled the car into the driveway. "But...I get to go tomorrow, then, right?"

"Absolutely. In the meantime, we're cleaning the garage. Race you inside!"

**Norman Osborn's office, **_meanwhile_

"I don't _know_ who it was. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

Norman Osborn leaned back in his chair, eyeing Dr. Connors. "You mean to tell me that someone broke in, found the test subjects, injected themselves with the virus from the smallest one, destroyed it, leaving obvious evidence on the floor I might add, left without taking anything, and was running around last night testing the results."

"Is that not exactly what I just said?" Dr. Connors said pointedly. "_Yes._ that is _precisely_ what I mean to tell you."

"Have you already examined the security footage?"

Connors took a deep breath, calming himself. "No. In any case, there aren't any cameras in the lab itself. Just the lobby and hallways."

"Why not?" Osborn muttered.

"I don't know; I didn't install them!"

"Watch yourself." Osborn glared briefly at Connors. "I wasn't talking to you. Run blood tests on employees; starting with the ones in the Bioengineering lab."

Dr. Connors nodded. "Yes sir. But for what it's worth, it's unlikely that one of them injected themselves with an untested retrovirus. They know what the risk could be; most of them have seen it for themselves."

"I know. But there's always the chance." Osborn paused, as the other half of the information hit him. "It works, doesn't it?"

"So it would appear," sighed Dr. Connors. Repeating the information he had memorized the day before, he said, "five minutes following injection, human stem cells ejected four hundred copies of the virus, and they had already begun changing by thirty minutes. When there were no more human cells to infect, the virus broke down inside of two minutes. We know that the protein shell and part of the payload works-"

"Judging by this alone," Osborn interrupted, gesturing to the open newspaper on his desk, "the entire payload works. Apply for FDA approval as soon as you can."

"Excuse me! This was not a controlled test! For all we know, this man could have mutated further between then and now! Look at this picture! _Maybe_ twenty-four hours after injecting himself and he's _STICKING TO A WALL!_"

"Voice. Down."

"My apologies. The point is, in the last eight hours, this man could have devolved into a psychopathic predator or, I don't know, started secreting webs from his posterior, or mouth, or, hell, his wrists for all I know. Which, by the way, is why I don't think anyone in the Bio lab would be reckless enough to do this. Excuse me."

Dr. Connors turned away from Osborn, glad to not have to look him in the face for a moment, taking out his ringing phone and putting it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Dr. Curt Connors?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"This is Ben Parker. Peter Parker's uncle. I just called to say that Peter won't be going to OsCorp this afternoon. He's grounded."

"Alright. Thank you for letting me know." Dr. Connors paused. "Grounded for what?"

"He was fighting at school. He's only suspended short term; he'll be back tomorrow."

"Thank you." Connors hung up, turning back to Osborn. "Sorry. So, I'll begin running blood tests on the employees, then."

"Yes. And apply for FDA approval as soon as you know the payload's effect. Good day."

**The Parker Residence, **_later_

"Whew," said Uncle Ben, leaning against the doorframe and accidently getting grease on it. "Well, that was easy."

"Yes. Yes, it was," said Peter, without a hint of irony. He stood on tiptoes, stretching his arms upward. "So. What's for dinner?"

"I have no idea. Let's go see."

Peter trotted into the kitchen, closely followed by Ben. Aunt May was there, making dinner: tomato soup, judging by the smell. "Hey, Aunt May."

"Hello, you two. Did you finish cleaning the garage?"

"Yeah," said Ben. "Actually, Peter did most of the heavy lifting. Literally. Seriously, Pete, I had no idea you were that strong."

Peter had been considering telling Uncle Ben about his new powers (_Powers._ He was still getting used to the idea that he had _powers._), but had been thinking that it might be a bad idea. Uncle Ben knowing equaled Aunt May knowing equaled OsCorp knowing, which was probably a very bad thing. Even so, he could in theory swear them to secrecy. Or something. He had decided to make a decision later. Until then, this was _his_.

"Well, of course. I've been carrying around a 25-pound backpack 6 hours a day. I would hope I gained something from that. So, is dinner ready?"

"Almost. Set the table, would you, Peter?"

"Yes ma'am." Peter opened the cabinet containing plates, and taking three, careful not to break them, he walked to the dinner table, feeling a few chips of paint come off on his fingertips as he walked away from the cabinet. He rolled his eyes as he set the plates down, dropping the pieces of paint onto the floor. his stomach growled loudly.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," said Aunt may, hearing it. "Tell the monster to wait a minute."

_later_

Peter sat on the armrest of the couch, absently watching the news while he browsed TV Tropes on his laptop. He had seen that morning that his little nighttime jaunt had not gone unnoticed, and was now trying to see if there was a follow-up to that report.

Nothing. Peter found that a little disappointing. The car park (specifically the deformed Smart car in it) hadn't been mentioned during the morning news or in the article, and Peter had been somewhat put out by that. His mood was quickly lifted by the commercial that came on right before ABC switched to _Once Upon a Time_.

WWE was holding an all-comers match that would air live at ten on FOX. The winner would receive three thousand dollars.

All day today, Peter had been wondering what to do with his powers (_Powers! Ha! I have POWERS!_). His mind had immediately jumped upstairs to his collection of comic books, but the idea of being a superhero completely ignored A) the fact that in a city this big, a man was mugged every nine seconds and the sheer _size_ of New York meant that he would likely never be there to stop it, B) there were already like twenty people running around trying to fight crime in tights, and they did so little most people had no idea they existed, and C) _Watchmen_ and _Kick-Ass_. Just to name a few reasons why he found the idea laughable. No. He wanted to make some money from this. And this... was _perfect._

Peter got up from the couch, closing his laptop. "I'm headed upstairs," he informed Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

"Cool," said Ben. "Working on that PC thing?"

"Yeah," Peter lied. "I think I may be onto something." With that, he quickly walked up the stairs, locking his (new) bedroom door behind him. Quickly changing out of his clothes, he pulled on the sport shirt and sweatpants from last night, then grabbed fifteen bucks out of his wallet to buy a mask or something.

Opening his window, he popped out the screen, setting it on his bed, and climbed out, closing it all but a crack.

** Madison Square Garden,** _ten thirty_

"This is a lot of paperwork," Peter muttered, hefting the pages. "What is all this stuff?"

"Insurance." The woman sitting in front of him popped her bubble gum, causing him to wince. "_When_ you get injured, we don't want you suing us."

"Fair enough. Could I borrow a pen?"

Taking the ballpoint she offered, Peter walked to the edge of the room, the tile floor cold on his bare feet. He placed the paperwork against the wall, quickly filling out all the blanks with hasty lies. Under _name,_ he wrote _Reilly, Benjamin R_ and hoped that no one would come fact-checking. Walking quickly to the back of the line for people who filled out the insurance claims, he impatiently waited for a few minutes (which, unfortunately, seemed more like an hour and a half). Finally, he offered the completed paperwork and the pen he had borrowed to the official.

"This all appears to be in order," he muttered. "Well, Mr... Reilly, go through that door and wait until your name is called. Next."

Peter pushed the door open, finding himself at the back of an extremely long line. His shoulders slumped slightly as he realized exactly how long this was going to take to someone with hypercognition, i.e. him. He irritably rocked on his heels for a few seconds, before becoming bored with that activity. Peter nervously adjusted the black balaclava he had bought from a bike shop, reflecting on how ridiculous he must look with his glasses sticking out of the eye hole.

Peter passed the time making conversation with the person behind him, finding out that the man was a very boring person when he wasn't participating in WWE's first-ever Amateur Night. He was glad when he realized he was finally up.

"Hey," said the stagehand next to the gateway. "Kid. We need your stage name, quick."

Peter raised his eyebrows, realizing that he hadn't thought of a stage name. He quickly started thinking up names.

_Arachnid? No. Arach_no?_ Hell no._

_ Man-Bug? Ha ha, no._

_ The Spider? Ooh, potential. But no._

_ Spiderman? Not bad, but it sounds annoyingly close to Superman. Besides, there's some French guy who's called Spiderman._

_ Spider Man?_

_ ...Spider-Man._

"Spider-Man," Peter finally replied, the overall time of his pause barely more than a second.

"Righto. He calls himself 'Spider-Man'," the man said into a walkie-talkie. "Get ready, kid. You're up."

"Awesome." Peter stood behind the curtain, cracking his neck. "So, do I just stand here, or..."

"And next up, hoping to win _three thousand dollars_," interrupted the incredibly hammy announcer in the ring, "we have the _terrifying, _the _deadly,_ The _Amazing_ _SPIDER-MAN!_"

Up went the curtain, revealing a very, very young man wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a balaclava with a pair of glasses conspicuously sticking out. There was a moment's pause as everybody took in this ridiculous sight.

"Well, I don't know about _terrifying_," Spider-Man said loudly, getting a general laugh from the audience.

"You have gotta be shitting me," said Crusher Hogan, the professional in the ring.

"No, Crusher," Spider-Man replied, walking casually down the ramp to the ring. "I shit you not. I know I'm a little below your weight class..."

By now, he was right outside the ring. From a standing position, Spider-Man hopped over the ropes, over Crusher's head, executed a flip and a twist, and landed in a crouch facing him.

"...But I'm sure I'll offer you a bit of a challenge," he finished, as though nothing had just happened.

"Wow," the announcer said quietly. Picking his overacting back up where he left off, he roared, "Will this new challenger be a match for the legendary _Crusher Hogan?!_"

"Of course I will," Spider-Man interrupted.

"Or will he be yet another victim of the Crusher?! We'll find out! NOW!"

With that, the announcer fled to the edge of the ring, outside of the line of fire. Suddenly the cheering was back, as the audience got back their enthusiasm and their desire to see this bug squashed.

The buzzer went off, indicating it was time for the match to start. Crusher Hogan and Spider-Man began circling each other, one acting up for the audience, the other examining his nails. At last, Crusher charged Spider-Man...

Only for him to leap over his head as casually as if stepping off of the sidewalk.

"Hmm. Y'know, I don't believe I've ever seen that wrestling move before. What's it called? The blind rhinoceros?"

"Shut up!"

"..._There is no comeback for that!_ Do you have _any idea_ how much- whoa."

As Crusher came for him a second time, Spider-Man slid between his legs, grabbing one of Crusher's calves as he did and pulling Crusher off his feet. Crusher quickly stood back up, looking around for Spider-Man and finding him crouched on one of the ring posts. The latter tilted his head teasingly.

"Cute outfit, by the way." Spider-Man hopped down from his perch. "Where'd you get it?"

"From your mom's wardrobe." Crusher came at Spider-Man again, trying to grapple his legs and take him down.

"No, seriously," Spider-Man said, flipping over Crusher. "As you can see, I'm a little lacking in the costume department. Who gave you that outfit? WWE? Wife?... Husband?"

"HEY!" Crusher roared, turning back towards Spider-Man, who was leaning against the ring ropes. "Out of line!"

Spider-Man shrugged. "Sorry."

Crusher roared, coming towards Spider-Man again. In response, Spider-Man jumped over his head, grabbed Crusher's head between his feet on the way over, landed on his fingertips, and flipped, catapulting Crusher into the ring ropes on the other side of the ring.

Dead silence for exactly one second as Crusher tried to get up, broken by a few scattered declarations of "Holy shit." Spider-Man took the opportunity to crack his knuckles.

"That felt good," he noted, stretching his fingers.

Crusher tried to push himself back up, using the ring ropes behind him to steady himself. He growled, coming for Spider-Man again and this time feinting, acting like he was going for the legs again but this time trying to trap Spider-Man in a bear hug.

Peter smirked, the expression all but invisible under the mask.

Swiftly, Spider-Man sidestepped Crusher, grabbed one of his legs, easily flipped him, and then jumped, pulling Crusher with him and sticking to the bottom of the ceiling just above the ring.

The reactions from the audience were priceless. "OH MY GOD!" "WHAT THE FUCK?!" "WHAT?!" "BUT... WHAT?!" "HOLY SHIT!"

"JEEZUS!" Crusher, finding himself suddenly upside down twenty-five feet over the ring. "KID! HOW'RE YOU... PUT ME DOWN! FOR GOD'S SAKE, PUMME DOWN!"

"Whatever," Spider-Man replied, and dropped him.

Crusher was either smart enough or lucky enough to turn to land on his shoulders and upper back, thus preventing himself from dying of brain damage and ensuring that the worst that happened to him was a fractured shoulder blade and the wind knocked out of him. While he was attempting to sit up, still trying to get his breath back, Spider-Man pushed off of the ceiling, aimed at Crusher, contorting so that he would hit elbow-first. The resulting piledriver, having plenty of velocity but not much mass behind it, cracked four of Crusher's ribs. The yell that emanated from his throat intermingled with the sound of the buzzer, ending the match.

There was almost total silence. Spider-Man stood up, looking around at the audience surrounding him. He shrugged once.

"So now what?" he asked loudly.

_later_

"Alright, kid," the announcer said, storming out of his office. "Give me the truth: _Are you a mutant?_"

Spider-Man folded his arms. "I expected this question. No, I am not a mutant. I am a GMO."

The announcer blinked. "What?"

"**G**enetically **M**odified **O**rganism. My DNA's been spliced with a giant house spider."

"So you're part _spider?!_ Is that what you just said?!"

"No, I said that I'm fully butterfly. Yes, that is exactly what I just said!" Spider-Man detached his feet from the wall, stepping onto the floor and pointing one finger at the announcer's face. "And that changes _nothing._ I still won. I still earned the three thousand. Do you have it, or not?"

The announcer and Spider-Man stood glaring at each other for a few seconds, before the announcer finally caved. "Well, yeah. You can have the three K..."

"Excellent."

"In five hundred dollar settlements over six days."

Peter had already figured out the logic behind this decision before he had finished screaming the word "_WHAT?!_" Of course they would want the winner to keep coming back for a while. Whoever had won Amateur Night would be an immediate crowd favorite. They would keep a lot of the same viewers coming back as well.

"Hey, hey, hey." The announcer took a step back. "I didn't make the decision, my boss did. Here." He grabbed ten fifty dollar bills out of his jacket pocket and offered it to Spider-Man, who irritably snatched it out of his hand. "Come back same time tomorrow and wrestle for us again, and we'll give you another five."

"Right," said Spider-Man, turning on his heel and walking towards the exit. After a second, he turned back and added, "On two conditions. Firstly, keep paying cash. You've probably figured out by now that I lied on that insurance form; I can't exactly cash a check made out to 'Spider-Man'."

"Whatever you say, pal. The other condition?"

"I want a costume. Something full-body, with a mask. And no stupid flame designs or whatever. Make it simple."

"You got it."

Peter smiled under the mask. "Seeya tomorrow." With that, he pushed the exit door open and jumped out of sight.

Peter pulled the balaclava off after a few seconds of running and roof hopping. Looking at the ten fifties clutched in his hand, he chuckled briefly at the strangeness that not only did he expect to be paid in cash, but it had actually happened. That was the very definition of luck. Peter stepped off the roof of the building he was on, starting quickly down the street towards a nearby corner store, grinning to himself. He had decided to buy something for Aunt May.

He didn't get halfway to it before the front door burst open and a man dressed entirely in black ran out full sprint. Between the man's running, the running Peter felt inside the store, and the wad of cash in the man's hand, it didn't take a genius to figure out what had just happened.

"STOP THAT GUY!" screamed the cashier, running out the door and pointing in the direction of the thief. "HE ROBBED THE STORE! STOP HIM!"

Peter watched the thief run down the sidewalk directly towards him. The man wasn't running for _him_, Peter realized, he was running for the car parked next to him. Peter took one step to the side, letting the thief pass, and watched as he slid over the hood of his car in a way that was clearly meant to look cool but was in reality just awkward. Peter suppressed a laugh as the man glanced back at him, gave a little half-wave, then climbed into his car and, after turning it on, sped away, burning rubber as he turned the corner and drove out of sight.

"There was something up with that guy's face," Peter commented to the cashier who had just run up to meet him. "His nose was like-"

"What's _with_ you, kid?!" the cashier said angrily.

"What?"

"Why didn't you grab him?! He went right past you! All you had to do was stick your foot out! He got away with the entire day's earnings!"

Peter shrugged apathetically, walking away. "Well, sorry. Not... not really my problem. I'm really more of a look-out-for-number-one type guy, y'know?"

"You...!" The cashier looked beyond livid. "I ought a call the cops on you, kid!"

"For what?" Peter called, already halfway down the block. "There's no law that says I have to help! I mean, what if he had a gun or something? Hmm? And now look. I _was_ going to buy something from your store, but now your attitude has driven away my business. Have a _nice_ day."

With that, Peter crossed the street, ducked into an alley, and hopped to the roof. Time to head home.

* * *

**A/N: ****I'm going to start working on a short narrative about how the 20th century in this reality was affected by Captain America. If any of you want to read it, let me know and I'll ad it to the Prologue. And while I'm busy with that, please review and tell me what you think so far. **_**Merci. Au revoir.**_

_**(Spoiler alert: it's pretty different, but not totally so. Government attempts to recreate the super-soldier serum would actually explain a lot: mutants, a bizarre number of improbably high IQ's, that sort of thing.)**_


	5. Crusin'

**The Parker Residence,**_ the next morning_

Peter was out of bed before his alarm clock finished three rings. Walking to the other side of the room, he plucked the small clock off of his desk and switched it off.

On his desk sat ten neatly stacked fifty-dollar bills. Peter chewed the inside of his cheek, looking at them, then folded a piece of paper in half and tucked the bills into the fold. Scribbling the word "SURPRISE" onto the paper, he dropped it into his desk drawer. Peter had decided to get all the money from his wrestling, and _then_ give it to Aunt May and Uncle Ben. He had decided he would tell them then. Maybe.

Yes. Absolutely. He had given himself a deadline.

**OsCorp,**_ that afternoon_

Peter speed-walked into the lab, carefully monitoring everyone simultaneously. Surely one of them had seen the various news reports and put two and two together. However, nobody was looking at him with an air of suspicion. He suppressed a sigh of relief, reminding himself that he was far from out of the woods, grabbed his lab coat, and pulled it on as he headed for Dr. Connors' office.

He knocked. Dr. Connors looked up from what he was doing, saw Peter through the office window, and beckoned quickly, returning to his typing.

"So," Peter said, entering the room, "what'd I miss?"

Dr. Connors inhaled, blowing the breath out through gritted teeth. "Well, the good news is that the protein shell of the virus was created perfectly, as was the replication gene."

Peter narrowed his eyes. "'Good news?' That implies that there's some sort of bad news. What happened? Did the stem cells explode or something?"

"No, no, nothing like that," said Dr. Connors. "The bad news is that someone stole a sample from the giant house spider."

The expected time between when you hear somebody say something and when you provide a response is about half a second. Relative to Peter, that meant he had twenty seconds, give or take, to think of a response, play it through in his head to see where it would most likely go, and tweak it slightly. He then proceeded to throw it out and just go with a loud "_What?_"

Dr. Connors showed Peter the article from yesterday. "Two nights ago, the day we found the specimen destroyed, this gentleman appeared in the city. He reportedly displayed abilities fairly consistent with what we hypothesized yesterday a _Homo sapiens/Tegenaria duellica_ hybrid could conceivably have... although the ability to adhere to walls is continuing to raise some of our eyebrows."

Peter read the article though forty times. "Um," he said, deciding that for now that was an appropriate line. "So... do we know who it was?"

"Unfortunately," said Dr. Connors, "no. I believe it was most likely somebody who didn't know what the potential outcome could be, which eliminates virtually everybody who worked on it."

Peter furrowed his brow. Wait a minute. "...So you're willing to give an entire room of people the benefit of the doubt?"

"I am. However, Norman Osborn is not. He wants blood work run on everybody in OsCorp. Including you, I'm afraid."

_Oh, shit. How am I supposed to get out of this? Ummm, that guy is headed straight for this office. He's gonna be here in, what, fifteen seconds? Stall for a moment._ "Okay, I expected that. There might be a few problems, I have trypanophobia, for one, but alright, I guess. Are we getting on this right away, or..."

He was interrupted, exactly according to plan, by a scientist barging through the office door. He had absolutely no idea who the scientist was (a quick glance at his ID informed him that his name was Dr. Miles Warren), but he felt like shaking the guy's hand in gratitude. Acting was not Peter's strong suit.

"It works," Dr. Warren said.

Dr. Connors stood up abruptly. "What?" he asked, suddenly excited.

Dr. Warren beckoned to follow him, and Dr. Connors did, followed by a slightly hesitant Peter. "What worked?" Peter asked. "What'd I mi - oh. Well then."

In a glass cage, a white mouse was walking on the underside of the ceiling.

Peter nervously scratched his head. "Alrighty then. So, uh, what's it been spliced with?"

"Gecko," Dr. Warren said. "And it still chose the grain to eat instead of the dead flies."

"...Good?"

"Allow me to explain," Dr. Connors said. "We were testing exactly how much the overall payload changed the organism. Dr. Warren, do you have its genetic results? Let's see, evidently only 17 genes have changed. And apparently diet wasn't any of them."

"We've run tests," Dr. Warren said. "All the changes that actually did happen are on page 2."

Dr. Connors quickly read through the second page of the clipboard, then, after a pause, handed it back to Dr. Warren. "Excellent. Can we tinker with the equations to produce different effects?"

"Yes, but it would be difficult and we would need to retest it."

"I see. Peter, come with me." Dr. Connors walked away, followed by Peter. "Firstly, I must congratulate you," he said. "Your equations were accurate. Speed, strength, metabolism, the nervous system, the skin cell membranes, everything. It's perfect, more or less. Thanks to you, we can apply for FDA approval and begin animal testing probably two months sooner than expected."

Peter nodded, accepting the praise. "Secondly?"

"Secondly," Dr. Connors said, "About that blood sample."

Peter visibly paled. "Sir," he said, deciding to cover up his unwillingness with an entirely different excuse, "can I not?"

"Why not?" asked Dr. Connors.

Peter scratched the back of his head. "I have trypanophobia," he lied. "I'm... deathly terrified of needles."

Dr. Connors raised his eyebrows. "Ah. I see. Well, like I said, I personally don't think anyone who actually worked on the serum would test it on themselves, especially not before we tested it on that mouse. I'm just doing what Norman Osborn told me to." He paused for a moment, considering. "I... suppose I could let you slide."

Peter exhaled. "Oh, thank you so much. Seriously." He decided to stop there. He had no experience with acting, and thus had no idea how far to go. Just expressing thanks and relaxing (which was his genuine reaction) seemed the best way to go. He turned, headed back to the genetically-modified mouse.

"Hey, by the way," he said, turning back to Dr. Connors, "if it turns out that the thief is an employee in one of the other labs, what do you intend to do with them?"

"Report them to Mr. Osborn, of course."

"Well, obviously. But what would he do then?"

Dr. Connors winced. "...I think knowing would affect my judgment."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, I could see that." His guilt for not just telling Connors suddenly silenced, he turned back to the mouse, which was scurrying across the wall of its cage. "This is the coolest thing ever," he whispered.

"It is, isn't it?" said Gwen Stacy behind him.

A week ago, Peter would have jumped in surprise. But then, a week ago he wasn't hypersensitive to movement and Gwen being there would have gone unnoticed until she had spoken. He turned to face her, smiling. "So apparently the serum works fairly well."

"Yeah," Gwen replied. "Well done."

Peter shrugged. "It was just an epiphany. Could've happened to anyone. Well, anyone _here_. Hey, thanks for catching that equation. I don't think anyone else would've."

Gwen waved away the praise with one hand. "I had been reading about that particular equation on WikiLeaks the previous day. They didn't know what it was, so I decided to work it out on paper. Pure luck, really."

Peter chewed his lip for a literal blink-and-you'd-miss-it moment. "Hey, does WikiLeaks say anything about Weapon X?" He asked, while in the process of working up some confidence. It was surprisingly hard to do, even knowing that he was the most powerful Earthly creature alive.

Gwen nodded. "_Oh_, yeah," she said, widening her eyes in an attempt to get her point across. "It's huge. Supposedly, about twenty years ago they captured that one mutant with the claws... what's his name, Wolverine from the X-Men."

"Logan Whatever?" Peter offered.

"Yeah. Anyway, apparently they covered Logan Whatever's skeleton with molten adamantium and erased his memory."

Peter raised his eyebrows, horrified. "Jeezus!" was all he could say. Now he was completely happy about not reporting his own mutation. "Let's... let's get off the morbid train, okay?"

Gwen shrugged. "Hey, you were the one who asked."

Peter shrugged halfheartedly. "Well, yeah. And now I'm un-asking. Hey, do you want to go get coffee a little later?"

Gwen raised her eyebrows. "...Huh. that may be the first time anyone's ever asked me out."

"I wasn't... uh." Peter scratched the back of his head. "That wasn't quite what I was going for. I mean, if you want to interpret it that way, you can, but frankly I was just hoping for a friendly chat outside of..." he gestured around them. "You know. A science lab. So, uhm, are you interested?" Peter rocked on his feet, spending the twenty seconds (relative to him) preparing something to say for if/when she refused. He had just decided on saying _thanks anyway_ when Gwen replied,

"Sure."

Peter blinked. "Seriously?" he asked, ecstatic.

Gwen nodded. "Yeah. Seriously. You're probably the first kid I've ever met who's at... y'know. Our level. Statistically, there's only like eight of us in New York, so I think I'd like to get to know another one."

Peter nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. Exactly. I'll, uhm, I'll meet you at that Starbucks across the street when we get off, then?"

Gwen smiled. "Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it."

Peter smiled nervously, his glasses slipping down his nose. He pushed them up with his thumb. "Yeah, me too. I'll, um, I'll talk to you then."

Gwen nodded. "Can't wait," she replied, returning to what she was doing.

Peter walked to where he had left his laptop, opening it and starting it up. Well. That was relatively painless. As he took a glance to see what others were doing, he smiled happily. For the first time he could remember, his lot in life was _perfect._

_That night_

Bonesaw McGraw was slammed into the mat, the force of Spider-Man's throw sending him straight through the canvas and to the hard tile beneath it.

Spider-Man stood up from his crouch, holding out his arms to savor the applause that rained down upon him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with the announcer, "The Amazing Spider-Man."

_later_

Spider-Man stared with crooked brow at the business card the designer had handed him. "_Leo_ _Zelinsky, designer_," he read aloud. "So, uh, Leo, when will my costume be done?"

Leo Zelinsky tucked the notebook containing Spider-Man's measurements under his arm. "I'll have it ready next week. Come around Wednesday night, sometime after nine. My shop is near the GAP on 23d and 8th Avenue."

"I can read," Spider-Man said. He turned to the manager. "If you'll just pony up the bucks, I'll be on my way."

"Another thing," said Leo, as the manager handed Spider-Man ten fifties. "Do you have contacts?"

"Of course I do," said Spider-Man sarcastically. "I'm just wearing my glasses instead, just for kicks."

"Get some contacts, kid," Leo said, headed for the door. "Your mask _will not_ be designed to have glasses sticking out."

"Hmm," Spider-Man said after he had left. "What's his deal?"

The manager shrugged. "He's the best designer we've ever hired. He revels in his job security."

"Tsk. Egos, I swear."

_Two days later_

Peter leapt over a water tower, landing on the wall some twenty feet behind it. Crawling up the side of the wall, he flinched and almost fell as he felt his phone buzz.

"Argh!" Peter pulled it out of his pocket, looking at the caller ID. Putting the phone to his ear, he said, "Yeah, Uncle Ben?"

"Where are you?"

"Um..." Peter looked behind him. The Queensboro bridge loomed almost half a mile away. "I went for a walk. I'm about ten minutes from home."

"Jeez, you gave us a scare. Come back to the house, will you? We have your birthday presents waiting."

Peter blinked. "Birthday? It's the 14th?"

"Yeah. Wanna come home and celebrate?"

Peter grinned. "Be there in a few. Bye."

Slipping his phone into his pocket, Peter sprinted off the parapet he was crouched on, leaping to another building two streets over, headed for the bridge.

_Nine minutes later_

"Whoof," Peter gasped, collapsing into a chair at the dinner table. "Note to self. Get in shape."

"You ran?" Ben asked, opposite Peter.

Peter shrugged. "Jogged, actually." He looked at the two medium-sized presents in front of him. "So can I open these now or are you singing first?"

"_This is your birthday song_," sang Ben and May, louder than necessary and horribly off-key, "_It isn't very long._"

"There," said Aunt May, clearing her throat. "Now you can open them."

"Think I will," Peter said, tearing into the nearer present. "...Oh, hey! Captain America's biography. And _Firefly: The Complete Series _on DVD! Thanks, Uncle Ben."

Ben nodded. "You're welcome."

Aunt May's present was October's copies of _Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, TIME Magazine,_ and _Stark Monthly_, along with two-year subscriptions to each of them and the four issues of _Geek Magazine_ that were currently out. Peter grinned. "Wow. Thanks, Aunt May. This is awesome."

Aunt May smiled. "I knew you'd like it."

Peter scratched the back of his neck. "Um, I was wondering. Since insurance rolled over on the first, do you think that I could get contact lenses?"

Uncle Ben raised his eyebrows, than exchanged glances with Aunt May, who simply shrugged. "Really? Sure. Where'd this come from? I thought you liked your glasses."

This was true. Peter, when choosing the previous year, had specifically gotten frames that made him look good. "Well, yeah, but... glasses are kind of... impractical..."

"Whatever, kiddo," said Ben, holding his hands up. "Your call. Just saying."

_The next day_

Peter sipped his coffee, absently reading the biography Uncle Ben gave him. Fascinating stuff, he mused absently as he read through the book at a rate of one page per second. Peter found himself wondering what he must look like to any observers. Probably like someone trying to look busy, rather than someone with hypercognition. Hypercognition. What a fun word to say.

"Are you actually reading that?" asked Gwen, taking a seat opposite him.

"Yes," Peter replied, somewhat defensively. "I'm speed-reading."

Gwen _hmm_ed. "Right." She lowered her head slightly, looking at the book's cover. "_Steven Rodgers; The Super-Soldier._ Um, Captain America."

"His biography." Peter closed the book, setting it on the table between them. "And according to the Table of Contents, there's an appendix on how attempts to replicate the serum have shaped history."

"Oh, really?" Gwen turned the book towards her, opening it to its copyright date. "Oh, _that's_ why it's not in the Public Library yet. Could I borrow this?"

"No." Peter slid the biography towards him an inch or two. "I'm not done with it. Ask me again tomorrow."

Gwen nodded. "Hey," she said suddenly, "did you get contacts?"

Peter closed his eyes tightly for a second. "Yeah. And they _suck._" He opened his eyes wide, revealing that they were extremely bloodshot. "The doc said they would for a few weeks. Can't wait to get used to these things." He looked at Uncle Ben, who had just walked in. "Oh, there's my ride."

Uncle Ben walked to where Peter and Gwen were sitting. "Hey, Pete. Who's this lovely lady?"

"Uncle Ben," Peter said, indicting towards Gwen, "this is Gwen Stacy. She's another intern. Gwen, this is my uncle."

"Pleasure," Gwen said, shaking Ben's hand.

"Likewise. I wish I could talk, but my wife wants me home for painting the kitchen. So, ready to go, Pete?"

"Yeah," Peter replied. He stood, tucked the book under his arm and his laptop under his other arm, and picked his backpack up from under his chair. "Good talking to you, Gwen."

"Likewise," Gwen replied, sipping her coffee. "See you tomorrow. Bring the book, please."

"Will do," Peter said, fairly skipping out of the café. Uncle Ben followed, unlocking the car remotely as he continued at a leisurely pace that Peter found, quite frankly, infuriatingly slow.

"She's pretty," Ben commented, pulling his seat belt over his waist.

"Yeah," Peter replied absently. "She is. I like her."

"Of course you do." Uncle Ben started the car, pulling it away from the curb. "...Did you say she was an intern?"

"Yeah."

"How old is she?" Ben asked, looking over his shoulder at the Starbucks. "She's your age, isn't she?"

Peter nodded. "That's like half of the reason why I like her. She corrected an equation I roughed out last week, after like two of the actual employees went over it. She's..._at my level_. Odds are, I will never, ever meet someone this smart again. So I'm getting to know her."

"Hmm." Ben drove in silence for a moment. "So, after we get home, I'm gonna need your help. We're moving the fridge to get to the wall behind it, and then we're painting."

Peter scratched the back of his neck. "I can help with the fridge, but I have to... uh..." _Practice with my powers._ "I'm close with the PC thing, and I want to run a few tests before I forget the chemical equations I've been doing in my head."

Ben blinked. A disappointed expression flashed across his face momentarily, and Peter inferred that he had wanted to take the opportunity to have a long, in-depth talk. Peter looked out the window. It was one thing to say you were going to tell someone about the superpowers you semi-spontaneously developed last week,

**23d and 8th,** _Two days later_

"Whoa."

"That'll be $200."

Spider-Man, blinking twice in rapid succession to clear his eyes of irritated tears, took a step closer to the folded costume on the table. "...This is awesome," he said. "What's the material made of?"

"It's a hybrid. Spandex, cotton, nylon. And it's $200."

Spider-Man held the mask up, admiring how the black latex rims around the eye holes contrasted with the red of the fabric. "Hey, what's this?" he asked, running his finger on the edge of the fabric and feeling the miniscule stiff fibers there.

"Essentially," said Zelinsky, "a Velcro zipper. The threads mesh together, holding the pieces of the costume together and keeping them from riding up. $200."

"I GET IT," Spider-Man said irritably. "It costs $200. Well I'm sorry, Mr. Zelinsky, but I don't have the money with me. I thought WWE paid you."

"They do," said Zelinsky. "They pay half of the price. You pay the other half. No money, no suit."

"Are you serious?" Spidey said. "Well, I can come back in like an hour with the money. And if I don't, you can tell them to take it out of my pay. Will that work?"

Leo gave him a look that appeared to be a nonverbal _no._

"Pretty please?"

Leo rolled his eyes. "One hour. Then I'm doubling the price."

"You are the man," said Spider-Man, putting the costume into a small book bag he had brought. "I'll be back soon, Leo."

**Madison Square Garden,** _twenty minutes later_

Spider-Man adjusted his mask slightly, the latex rims surrounding the eye holes setting around his eye sockets. He breathed deeply, smoothing down the neck of the mask. Man, this thing was uncomfortable.

_Of course it is,_ Peter reflected. _It's a skintight suit on hypersensitive skin. Doesn't seem to hamper my sense of touch too badly, though. At least the thing's a universal sensation._

The stagehand gestured for Spider-Man to go through the curtain, and he did so.

_Crap!_ he thought suddenly. _I should have borrowed eye makeup or something._

Spider-Man's costume was evidently based on various acrobatic and gymnastics unitards, despite the fact that the shirt and pants were separate garments. A simple red and black color scheme; Zelinsky had obviously taken Peter's _simple_ request and ran with it for all it was worth. Actually, Peter wouldn't have minded a symbol of some sort on the red of his upper chest and the massive black area on his back. Perhaps some lenses or something over the eye holes as well, to add some kind of "bug-eyed" look.

Spider-Man hopped onto the stage, the rubber shoe-like soles of the boots absorbing some amount of shock. "Oh, hey Crusher!" he said to Hogan on the other side of the ring. "Good to see you again! Gotten over the embarrassment of being beaten by someone half your size yet?"

Hogan growled. "I'm gonna feel much better about it in a few minutes."

"I don't think you'll be feeling much of anything in a few minutes."

"Fuck you."

"Not on the second date," Spider-Man said, completely deadpan and almost cut off by the buzzer.

Crusher charged. Spider-Man leapt high over his head, impacting the ceiling and attempting to stick. He failed. Peter gave a surprised yelp as he felt himself start to fall.

_Oh, of course. Stupid gloves._

Peter's first reaction was to twist in midair and land on his feet, but the crowd was already starting to laugh. Spider-Man sighed and remained facing belly up, landing on his shoulder blades and laying still for a second. He rolled over, put a hand to his temple and shook his head slightly, as though to clear stars from his vision. He was, of course, fine. Next to his jumping, that was a four inch fall. Spider-Man looked up and saw Crusher advancing, laughing with everyone else. Peter clenched his teeth. Alright, he had given them a laugh. Now to kick Crusher's ass.

Nobody saw what happened next. Literally, nobody. Spider-Man had been pushing himself onto his feet, and then suddenly he was on the other side of the ring, lifting Crusher and tossing him out like a rag doll. In the slow motion instant replay seen by all viewers at home, it still looked exactly as though Spider-Man had teleported across the ring. Only in a frame-by-frame replay did any form of movement become apparent: one frame, Spider-Man getting up, the next, a red and black blur three-fourths of the way to Crusher, and the next Spider-Man trapping Crusher in a bear hug. For the first time in recorded history, a Flash Step had been performed outside a cartoon.

The crowd yelled, some calling bullshit on what had just happened, as Crusher slowly, slowly got to his feet. "Ow," he said simply, trying to climb back into the ring. Spider-Man waited patiently, arms folded, pretending he hadn't just moved faster than the human eye.

"Hmm," he commented. "You might be a little heavier than last time I tossed you. I could be just imagining it, of course, but all the same you should probably cut back on the Snickers. I know you're not you when you're hungry, but all things considered that's probably a good thing."

"Will you _shut up?_" Crusher said angrily, finally climbing back into the ring.

"Nah." Spider-Man backflipped away from Crusher, overbalancing because he couldn't stick to the ground and falling backwards. He caught himself, keeping himself from landing on his butt, and dropped down to a bug-like crouch. "You bore me. Running commentary is the only thing that makes this remotely interesting."

Crusher growled.

"A growl. Wow. Poets would be gobsmacked." Spider-Man tackled Crusher, pinning him to the ground. "Seriously, you picked the wrong stage name. Grizzly would be a _much_ better one. One. Two. Three."

The ref called the match, and Spider-Man stood, raising his arms to the hesitant, then strong, applause.

_Twenty minutes later_

"And I'm back," Spider-Man said, walking into the door with four fifty-dollar bills in one hand and his gloves in the other. "I like the suit, but would it be cool if you could tweak it slightly?"

Zelinsky took the money silently. "Tweak as in..."

Spider-Man looked at the gloves. "I can't stick to walls through these. I was wondering if you could replace the fabric of the fingers and palms with something thinner, and really loose-knit. Also, I had a thought that maybe the mask would look cooler if there was a kind of, uh, 'bug-eyed' look, so I thought maybe a pair of reflective lenses or something." He looked down at the large blank red area on his chest. "And I was thinking you could maybe put some sort of symbol here. Some sort of stylized spider design, maybe. So, uhm, what do you-"

"I could do all that," Zelinsky said. "And I would charge another fifty for every modification."

"In that case," Spider-Man said, slightly exasperated, "I'll just do it myself then." He pulled on the seam around his waist, and after stretching for a second, the shirt and pants of the suit detached from each other in a small area that Spider-Man tucked his gloves into. "See ya, Leo. Thanks for the outfit."

"I still don't get why you wanted a costume when your last match is... what, tomorrow?"

"Yeah." Spider-Man walked towards the door. "But I'm planning on doing other stuff after my wrestling career is over. Bye."

_Well_, Spider-Man thought, leaping for the roof across the street, _I s'pose I'll need to stop at a fabric store on the way home. I wonder how thin the fabric would have to be for me to stick through? It works with threadbare stuff, so..._

He vaulted over a water tower, perching on the corner of the building he was on. _I think I have a pair of sunglasses about the size of these eye holes, too. I like that pair, though. Ah, well, I bet I can find a new pair._ He leapt off the roof, bouncing off the building across the street, staying relatively close to the ground, looking for some kind of craft store. _Hmm. I wonder if the school's art room has a silk screener?_

**OsCorp,**_ meanwhile_

Dr. Connors knocked on the office door, and was immediately answered by the door opening. He entered, rubbing exhaustion out of his eyes.

"Dr. Connors," said Osborn, releasing the button that remotely opened the door without looking up from the financial report he was reading. "I hope you've brought some good news."

"The news that I have," Dr. Connors said, "is entirely open for interpretation on whether it's good or not. We've run DNA tests on most of the staff, and everybody's come up clean. All 100% human, sir."

"What do you mean, 'most?'" Osborn asked, with an air of mingled curiosity and frustration.

Dr. Connors shrugged. "Well, a few didn't give DNA samples. Dr. Octavius refused, one of my interns is reportedly typanophobic, an entire branch of marketing threatened to go on strike if I pressed the issue, Dr. Ratha refused as well... there were a few others, but I don't remember their names."

"There are other ways to get a DNA sample besides blood."

"Our machines are made to read-"

"But I don't need you to run tests anymore. I've found the thief."

Dr. Connors blinked, confused. Osborn tapped the surface of his desk, which lit up like a very large computer screen. Typing something into a keyboard that appeared, he waited a moment.

"New desk?"

"Yes," said Osborn. "I had it custom-made. Now quiet; look at this." He tapped on a search result, and rotated the window 180 degrees so that Dr. Connors could see the image on what appeared to be WWE's website. The image was of a young man, dressed in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a mask, sticking to the ceiling of Madison Square Garden with his fingertips as he kicked the larger wrestler below him in the face.

Dr. Connors furrowed his brow. "He's... wrestling?"

"Apparently," said Osborn simply. "Tomorrow, you're headed to Madison Square and confronting this young man. Any questions?"

Dr. Connors shook his head.

"Good. And because I want to speak to him myself, I'm coming too."

* * *

**A/N: Well, I went through a week in one chapter. I don't know about you, but I think it feels slightly choppy.**

** Actually, I've been reading my previous chapters, and I think that this whole thing could use a second draft. I was thinking that if I wrote the entire six-or-seven-part story arc over two months, writing about 500 words a day, I would end up with a 30,000 word novella of sorts and publish each chapter of it once every two weeks starting in September, touching up existing chapters and writing the next arc in the time that would lend me. I've been tossing this idea around and I like it, but I thought I'd run it by you guys. What do you think? Please review. **_**Merci. Au revior.**_

** (On the other hand, if you don't want me to revise this, let me know that. Couldn't see why you wouldn't want this to be better, though. Unless you were impatient.)**


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